First Captain Chris Anderson, a master mariner joined with Colin Kinsley of the Northern Gateway Alliance [a coalition of people supporting the regulatory review of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project] to discuss several marine safety aspects of the Northern Gateway Pipeline project with Village of 亚洲天堂 Lake council last week.
Anderson has been providing information for a marine shipping quantitative risk analysis for the Northern Gateway project. The 151 page technical report that took four years to complete was recently submitted as part of the project's joint review process that is currently underway.
The report has also been filed with the National Energy Board.
"There are many existing marine oil terminals in Canada, two of them are in B.C.," he said, adding that while there is already set marine standards, it is Enbridge's goal to expand on these standards to mitigate the risk of an oil spill.
"Double hulls, proper navigation equipment and training are all established international requirements that already have to be adopted and Canada has a Pilotage Act that introduces these regulations. Enbridge is going to add to those," he said.
Anderson recently travelled to Denmark along with a number of marine pilots and a marine specialist and participated in a tanker simulation scenario navigating the Douglas Channel. "This exercise was successful and proves that tankers can successfully go up the Douglas Channel unaided by tugs. Even so, there will be two tugs assisting a vessel every time."
Enbridge will also install new weather monitoring stations in addition to the already existing Environment Canada weather stations, as well as introduce radar to B.C.'s North coast.
"There is no radar for the Douglas Channel at the moment."
According to Anderson, navigation is currently achieved by radio call in and with an automatic receiver system. "The automatic receiver system enables vessels to be seen from onshore monitoring stations."
He said however, that the automatic receiver has limitations as vessel captains may forget to turn it on and the system is not used in smaller ships.
"A land based radar will allow onshore navigators to always see what is out there. There is radar in Vancouver, Victoria and Tofino already. It is just one more layer of safety for navigation on the North coast."
Other proposed marine safety initiatives to mitigate the potential of environmental damage will include a closed loading system to prevent the condensate vapor from escaping, as well as a boom around the vessel while it is being loaded. "This is part of the risk assessment recommendation process because nothing is perfect," he said.
Anderson said the addition of escort tugs will mitigate the risk of any potential environmental disaster.
"The tugs will have spill response equipment, including dispersant applicators and booms. If something goes wrong with the tanker, the tugs will be the first responders. There is response centres located in Kitimat, Prince Rupert and Shearwater ... a spill response plan was filed a year ago with the joint review panel."
According to Anderson a review of the report by Transport Canada did not identify any regulatory concerns or require any new regulations to be considered.
"This doesn't mean that they approve of the project, just that they approved this report," he added.
Anderson said that he is confident that the marine aspect of the Northern Gateway project can be carried out safely.
Mayor Luke Strimbold asked how navigating the Douglas Channel compares with other marine channels in Vancouver?
"In Vancouver there is two 'narrows' - the first is 350 metres wide, the second 120 metres wide from span to span. The Douglas Channel is 1,400 metres wide from span to span, which is 10 times the width of the second narrows in Vancouver. The Douglas Channel will also have one-tenth of the traffic volume of Vancouver."
According to Anderson, the depth of the Douglas Channel is also more favourable than the channels in Vancouver at 200 plus metres while the first narrows in Vancouver is at 15 metres deep in high tide and the second at just 14 metres in high tide.
"In Norway there are shipping channels that are very narrow .... 10 times more narrow than what we are talking about for the Douglas Channel."
"The tugs will mitigate any grounding risk. Power grounding is pilot error ... when they have steered the wrong course.鈥
Anderson said that the Queen of the North is a prime example of this.
鈥淒rift grounding is when there is a malfunction with the vessel or it breaks down. The tugs will be 10,000 horse power and have a special propulsion system. They will be able to steer the vessel and counteract a hard over rudder and can also assist in stopping a vessel by reducing the speed and control its direction.鈥
He said that there isn鈥檛 any Canadian regulations that require assist tugs, but Enbridge will require it for the Northern gateway operation.
As reported in the Lakes District 亚洲天堂 edition of April 18, 2012, council have yet to make a decision as to wether they will support the controversial project.