Ice already posing problems in gulf

Ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this winter are about a month behind last year but are catching up.

Bradley Durnford, the Coast Guard’s ice superintendent for the Atlantic region, noted ice formed faster last year because of a particularly cold December 2018.

He said the next few weeks will determine the severity of the current ice year.

“It is tracking to be a little bit tough in the gulf if conditions keep worsening,” he told media during an ice operations technical briefing Tuesday morning from St. John’s.

The Coast Guard got its first call on Tuesday to free a boat caught in ice off New Brunswick, but it got freed before help arrived. An icebreaker was also dispatched to assist a Strait of Belle Isle ferry on Feb. 4, the same date that such help was activated last year. Ice-control measures are now activated at the Confederation Bridge, which requires vessels crossing under it to have an icebreaker escort.

As for fishing harbours, Durnford said it would make no sense to have an icebreaker in to break up harbours too early.

“You would probably make things worse by breaking up the fast ice that forms there, making it harder to break out at the end of the year,” he said.

“We’re running up against the right whales arriving in the gulf,” he said. “The ice season kind of meets the whales. Once the ice starts melting, the whales come in.”

Durnford also said an application process closed bTuesday which could result in private industry giving the Coast Guard a hand in the process. He expects to know the result of that process in a matter of days.