Friday, April 10, 2015

This Day In HarperClarkland...But English Bay Is So Isolated And Hard To Get To.

AllTheLateContainmentThat
FitsVille


Well, well, well...

It turns out that, yes, it did take quite awhile to start getting that oil slick contained, for real.

The triple-headed hydra of Crawford, Sinoski and Morton from the VSun have the story:

VANCOUVER - Containment crews did not respond to an oil spill spreading in English Bay until three hours after it was first reported to authorities.

And it was significantly longer — 12 hours — before city officials were informed of the spill, believed to be toxic bunker fuel, which a pollution expert warned Thursday could linger in the marine environment for decades.

A sailor first reported the estimated kilometre-long oil slick to Port Metro Vancouver at about 5 p.m. but the coast guard didn’t begin to contain the area until 8 p.m. By 2 a.m. Thursday crews in five boats from private contractor West Coast Marine Response Corp. had set up a boom around the ship Marathassa, a bulk grain carrier that had arrived from Korea. They worked all night and into the next day to recover some of the heavier oil around the ship and try to pinpoint its source.

City officials, however, were not informed of the slick until 6 a.m. Thursday. They activated the emergency operations centre, called in Vancouver Police and Fire and Rescue marine units, as well as city staff and park rangers to monitor the shoreline, and biologists and wildlife experts to assess any risks to wildlife...

{snip}

...Canadian Coast Guard assistant commissioner Roger Girouard admitted late Thursday that the city should have been informed earlier. “I certainly think we have to review (the process). Our protocol was the conversation with Port Metro Vancouver and the province and our understanding was that they’d do the fan-out to the city. It was not our intent to leave the city in the blind.”

Girouard noted there was a “disconnect” between the time they found out about the spill and the time it took to get on board the ship, and that the ship might not even have known there was a problem...



Now.

Here is the real kicker...

...Rob O’Dea, the sailor who reported the spill, was out in English Bay at about 5 p.m. when he noticed a half-a-kilometre section of flat water amid the windswept waves. As he sailed closer, he realized the slick wasn’t just on the surface but deep beneath the water.

“There were thousands of block globules from the size of a pea up to a fist,” O’Dea said. “It wasn’t just an oily sheen.”

He called the coast guard, but noted there was not an emergency response on scene until at least an hour later when a harbour patrol boat appeared and went back and forth through the slick. By 8 p.m., he said, the slick still hadn’t been contained. Ironically, O’Dea added, the spill had occurred in sight of the now-closed coast guard station...



And why aren't we hearing more from the Coast Guard?

Well, apparently, at least according to NW's Shane Woodford, they aren't allowed to speak.

Gag us once, shame on them and all that...

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Gosh.

Just who was it again that dismantled the Coast Guard base in English Bay?

And who couldn't really bring themselves to raise a sparkle pony-encrusted finger to stop it?

And if there was a real spill 'round here?

What would happen then, I wonder?


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And why, exactly, don't we have a Coast Guard base anymore, anyway?....Well, according to the official Harper government line it is to save $700K per year which would come under that old Rafeian maxim of how they (and their lickspittles) know the 'cost of everything and the value of nothing'...And the real reason?...Well, to the best of my knowledge the condolandjack hypothesis has not yet been disproven...After all, it's not as if such a landjacking has not occurred somewhere else in MetroVancouver recently...Right?



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9 comments:

Dana said...

Isn't it swell that we're all being so polite and civil about the destruction of English Bay?

Lew said...

North Van’s Grumps has something up that will surely make everyone feel better. Everything’s sort of covered by an org chart with colours and everything. So bring on the spills, we’re ready!

Sort of.

http://blogborgcollective.blogspot.ca

Don F. said...

The coastguard spokesperson says it's not certain it was that ship leaking, yet they will hang Duffy for not excersizing common sense.

What that man spewed out should be kept in a vault for future generations to understand what our plight was like.

RossK said...

Dana makes an excellent point.

And yes...Colours! Lights! Spokesthingies!

Speaking of which, our fine Premier is getting ready to her 'Say Anything' act as we type...


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Dana said...

Our fine Premier is a dumb, entitled bitch who learned how to be popular in school and, with the connivance of some amoral political power brokers and some media whores, has managed to parlay her popularity into a licence to destroy the heritage and future of this province.

Have at me.

RossK said...

Dana--

Not gonna do it.

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Dana said...

By the time she's fucked over everybody she needs to fuck over to feel less worthless, if she's not somehow stopped or curtailed, BC will no longer have a functional public education system, a smoothly functioning public health care system and much of the environment will be beyond protection.

How polite and civil do you and your readers think BCers should be facing that?

chuckstraight said...

I second Dan`s comment re:dumb entitled bitch.
A perfect description of our "Premier".

e.a.f. said...

entitled bitch just about says it all.

now as to the closing of the Kits station to save money. I can see that. they need the money to bomb a few countries in the middle east at the price of $90K per bomb. Its always more important to bomb and kill people in foreign countries than to be prepared to deal with oil spills, save lives, feed children, provide medical care in your own country.

Next election remember ABC and go out and vote. Then drag all your friends and family to the polls also