Feds to spend more on ship pollution surveillance

RICHMOND, B.C. — The federal government has announced a funding boost for marine pollution surveillance as it attempts to shore up environmental protections in British Columbia and water down opposition to oil export plans.

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said on Wednesday that funding for the aerial surveillance program will increase from $5 million to roughly $10 million a year over the next five years, allowing the country’s three surveillance aircraft to increase the number of flights to spot oil spills off Canadian coasts.

The fleet currently spends 2,080 hours a year in the air, and Raitt said that time will increase to 3,750 with the new money.

“On the West Coast, what it means is that surveillance hours increase from 500 to 700 hours until 2017-2018, and at that time, it’s going to increase to 1,200 hours,” she said at a media event in Richmond.

She also said more patrols will be dispatched in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Harbour, the waters just off Metro Vancouver.

Surveillance will also increase around Prince Rupert and Kitimat, where tankers would ship diluted bitumen from the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline if the project is approved.

Canada’s surveillance fleet consists of one aircraft located in Vancouver, another in Moncton, N.B., and one in Ottawa.

Each aircraft is responsible for a section of Canada’s 200,000-kilometre coastline along three oceans, and each is equipped with instruments to record and report marine pollution below.

Wednesday’s announcement is another in a series of federal measures aimed at assuaging fears about tanker safety and marine protection in the westernmost province, where opposition threatens the development of two major oil pipeline projects.

The Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s proposal to triple the capacity of its existing Trans Mountain line would result in about 400 more tankers traversing the waters off the B.C. coast annually.

Over the past year, with the Northern Gateway facing protests and the possibility of legal challenges, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has been to B.C. to announced greater administrative penalties for polluters, mandatory marine response plans for oil terminal operators and increased annual inspections for all tankers.

Raitt said Wednesday that the surveillance aircraft have equipment that can detect as little as one litre of oil spilled into the water, but critics are steadfast.

“All of this stuff is all window dressing,” said Art Sterritt of the Coastal First Nations, a group of aboriginal bands that opposes the Northern Gateway project.

“They come along and say we’re going to have the best detection in the world, we’re going to have the best cleanup system in the world. But the reality is the best cleanup system in the world right now can’t clean up anything.”

Eoin Madden, with the Wilderness Committee, said more surveillance flights could lead to a quicker response to an oil spill but little can be done about a spill of diluted bitumen, the heavier crude oil product that would be transported by the Northern Gateway.

“No matter how much you spend on these flights, less than 10 per cent of the oil is recoverable for many oil spills in normal sea conditions,” he said.

A recent study by the federal government concluded that diluted bitumen sinks in salt water when pounded by waves and mixed with sediment.

The report also said the product floats when free of sediments, even after evaporation and exposure to light.