March 2006: Queen of the North sinking. Still sitting on the bottom loaded with contaminates.
August 2006: Squamish Estuary oil spill. Bunker- C continues to saturate the intertidal zone. No T.S.B. investigation.
July 2007: Burrard Inlet crude spill. Long term legacy again left in the intertidal zone.
August 2007: Robson Bight Diesel spill. Tanker loaded with fuel still sitting at the bottom.
May 2008: Hecate Strait Diesel spill. Uncontained fuel hits the coastline.
May 2008: Britannia Beach diesel spill. Diesel saturated shorelines.
I have witnessed firsthand four of these B.C. spills. We simply do not have the technology, capability, and worst of all the willingness to properly clean up fuel spills of any type.
We are good at skimming most free-floating fuels from the surface, but when the oil hits the beaches, the story changes.
It may look to the average viewer that things are looking good, but all you have to do is go down to the beach and turn over a few rocks at the Burrard site, or take a shovel and dig a few inches into the shoreline in the Squamish Estuary. If you could take a submarine down to either the wreck of the Queen of the North, or the equipment lying down at the bottom of Robson Bight, you would see pollution time bombs in front of you.
John Buchanan
Squamish
