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Squamish Oil Spill
 
 

On Friday August 4, 2005, a large freighter that was being escorted by two tugs hit pilings and dumped as much as 50 tonnes of fuel.

Bunker fuel gushed from the freighter for at least an hour, coating wildlife and forcing windsurfers and kiteboarders to flee.

The fuel spill was pushed by waves, currents and winds into the Squamish Estuary and affected the shorelines, marshes and wildlife.

Members of the coast guard emergency response team and provincial conservation officers were on the scene by Friday night, along with Burrard Clean, a containment and cleanup company based in North Vancouver.

The fuel forced at least 20 people from the water, an eyewitness said.

At 3 p.m., the Westwood Anette, owned by Gearbulk Shipping Canada, punctured two holes in a fuel tank while leaving Squamish Terminal, said coast guard spokesman Don Bate.

  
 
 

Click on play to hear a ships horn sound.

                 
   
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Catherine Stewart, campaigns director of the Living Oceans Society, said the spill has the potential to cause enormous ecological damage because estuaries are the richest part of the river system, with a high concentration of shellfish, plants, insects and juvenile fish.

Stewart said the spill will be particularly hard on salmon stocks, which were virtually wiped out by a chemical spill in the Cheakamus River, which flows into the Squamish River and then into the estuary.

The Cheakamus River spill happened exactly one year.

"It's like a double-barrelled hit to the fish stocks," said Stewart.

"This just illustrates that accidents will happen and they [authorities] don't have the response capacity right now to deal with them," she said, adding that the response proves it would be reckless to lift a moratorium on oil tankers and offshore drilling along B.C.'s coast.
To download a version of QuickTime to view the video click Here.    
                                 
The risk imposed by fuel spills from local tankers and from larger vessels in the Howe Sound area is considerable. Even a glob of oil the size of dime is enough to kill a bird . The variety of sea life, birds, mammals, and other species on the coast is very diverse and numerous. As population pressures increase demand for goods, the deman for energy increases as well, increasing the risks of a major accident.  
                                 
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Sources:

Map:

Created by Robert Price, Base map sourced from Data Warehouse, DMTI Dataset, Can Map Street Files, CanMap_StreetFiles_v2005, BC, BCTop

Photos:

Oil Tanker Retrieved December 3, 2006 from: http://www.squamishstreams.com/Cheakamus.htm

People with oil boom Retrieved December 3, 2006 from: http://www.georgiastrait.org/Articles2006/squamish-oil-spill-photos.php

View of boom, ship and Howe Sound in distance Retrievedd December 3, 2006 from: http://www.georgiastrait.org/Articles2006/squamish-oil-spill-photos.php

Oil soaked Gannet Retrieved December 3, 2006 from: http://www.ibrrc.org/oil_affects.html

Text:

sourced from The Vancouver Sun newspaper, Retrieved December 3, 2006 from: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=5ecba5da-141d-4fcc-a6aa-09c5c4fb45bc

 

    
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