Effect of oil spill on estuary worrisome

SQUAMISH, British Columbia — Wildlife officials are concerned about how an oil spill from a cargo vessel will affect parts of a sensitive coastal estuary on the British Columbia coast.

The spill occurred Friday afternoon after the cargo ship Westwood Arnette hit a pier while leaving a terminal, puncturing two holes in a fuel tank.

Fifty tons of thick bunker fuel spilled into the water and was quickly pushed by the wind about 1,640 feet into Howe Sound, a stretch of water along the highway between Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler.

The heavy oil also seeped into the Squamish estuary, a marshy area that is home to many species of birds and wildlife.

Meg Followes, president of the Squamish Environmental Conservation Society, said Saturday she is most concerned about the water birds.

“They preen their feathers a lot and it’s not salad oil they’d be ingesting,” she said.

While several birds found in the area appeared to be covered in oil, Followes said it was hard to tell immediately what effect the spill will have on other wildlife such as river otters.

“I guess you just wait until they wash up dead, if they’re going to,” she said.

Followes was also concerned about the difficulty of cleaning up the spill.

“When you actually get that kind of material going in all the sedges, floating in on the tide … I don’t see any way you could clean it up. I think that’s virtually impossible.”

Canadian Coast Guard spokesman Dan Bate admitted that bunker fuel isn’t as easy to sop up as other petroleum products. Diesel, for example, is easily absorbed and will eventually evaporate.

For the Squamish cleanup, machines were being used to skim the oil slick off the water. Absorbent material was also being scattered to catch the heavy, sticky oil as it spreads by means of wind and wave action.

“(The estuary is) difficult to clean up due to the materials on the shore,” Bate said. “If you think about cleaning up a beach, it’s a little easier than cleaning up grass for example … you’d actually have to go in and manually clean it up.”

As of Saturday afternoon, more than 50 people were involved in the cleanup, including employees of the provincial environment ministry and Burrard Clean, a contracted company that specializes in oil spill response.

Also on Saturday afternoon, park rangers in Porteau Cove, less than 13 miles south of Squamish, were advising campers to stay away from the beach, as wind was pushing oil toward shore.

Followes said her society, along with the municipality of Squamish and Squamish First Nation, want the government to declare the estuary a provincial wildlife management area, which means it would be managed principally for the benefit of wildlife. Industrial development, including any port development, would be restricted.

Environment Minister Barry Penner said the locale is already considered a conservation area. The ministry is reviewing whether it would eventually declare it as a wildlife management area.

“We’ll have to see just what the actual impact or significance would be of the different terminology,” he said.

Exactly one year ago Saturday, a CN train derailed, spilling sodium hydroxide into the Cheakamus River almost 19 miles north of Squamish, causing substantial damage to the river’s wildlife.