Fuel removal deemed far too risky

It's not the result that the residents of Hartley Bay wanted to hear, the fuel from the sunken Queen of the North has been deemed to be too unstable to risk removal, leaving what many suggest may be a ticking environmental time bomb on the bottom of the passageway near Gil Island.

Of concern to the people of Hartley Bay is the impact that the fuel could have on their traditional fisheries in that area, there is some dispute as to how much of the potential 220,000 litres of fuel on board the Queen of the North could still be in the tanks and how much escaped as the vessel sank to the bottom of Wright Sound.

No decision has been made yet, the review process is now underway at BC Ferries who will study the findings of a coast guard report into the fuel situation before coming up with a final decision and statement on the issue.

Still to be heard is also the next move from Hartley Bay, who suggest that legal action may be the next required stage to solve a problem they say is of great concern to their community.

The Victoria Times Colonist had a story on the situation posted to their website today:


'Far too risky' to remove fuel from ferry
Coast guard advises leaving wreck alone, B.C. Ferries reveals; another report says not much diesel remains
Cindy E. Harnett and Terri Theodore
Times Colonist; The Canadian Press
Monday, April 23, 2007

B.C. Ferries is reviewing a report that says it's too dangerous to extract the diesel fuel from the sunken Queen of the North.

"The coast guard report is fairly clear in that it's probably far too risky to attempt any major salvage operation or an attempt to extricate the contents of the fuel; that's clear," B.C. Ferries spokesman Mark Stefanson said in a phone interview yesterday, offering the first hint about the contents of the Canadian Coast Guard report sent to B.C. Ferries last week.

"No decisions have been made yet," Stefanson said. "We're reviewing the options for next steps ... for what may or may not occur."

The coast guard recommendations have been hotly anticipated, since the ferry company is expected to use them to make a decision regarding the ferry that sank on March 22, 2006, in Wright Sound after running aground on Gil Island as it travelled from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy. The coast guard used documents compiled by B.C. Ferries, which outlined several options the ferry company was considering, to come to its conclusions.

It's unclear how much fuel might remain trapped 400 metres underwater, although the ferry's tanks could carry about 220,000 litres of diesel.

According to a consultant's report obtained by The Canadian Press under the Freedom of Information Act, it's likely most of the fuel on board spilled as the hull was torn on the rocks of Gil Island before the ferry sank.

"First responders comment that the entire surface of Wright Sound was covered with sheen and that all debris [e.g., life jackets] was soaked in diesel fuel," the report states. The total area of visible fuel sheen on the water after the spill was in the range of 340 square kilometres, three times the size of the City of Vancouver.

In the year since the sinking, trace amounts of diesel have been seen rising to the surface.
The report, called Queen of the North Environmental Monitoring Review, was prepared last November for B.C. Ferries by Coastal & Ocean Resources Inc., a consulting service in geological and environmental sciences.

Aboriginal leaders worry B.C. Ferries might use the consultant's report as support for leaving the remaining fuel on the sunken vessel. If so, the company could face a lawsuit from the First Nations near the site of the sinking.

"We've inquired about legal action," said Hartley Bay chief councillor Bob Hill, who doesn't agree with the review's conclusions.

"When you go through all the figures ... I really think that there's at least 50 per cent of the fuel left, that's very conservative, more likely between 120,000 and 150,000 litres are still there."
Hill said Ferries CEO David Hahn has already made promises he hasn't kept. "He said publicly in Hartley Bay that he would remove every litre of fuel off that vessel by the late fall of 2006," Hill fumed.

Coast guard spokesman Dan Bate said B.C. Ferries is aware one possibility is that much of the fuel may have spilled when the ferry hit ground.

"You ask the million-dollar question, right: Why go down, why do that kind of stuff if there's nothing else there?"

Stefanson says B.C. Ferries plans to review the coast guard recommendations in detail before making a final decision. "I don't want to comment further until we've done that."

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007