Robson Bight Recovery Effort Starting

Monday, May 4, 2009
TELEGRAPH COVE, BRITISH COLUMBIA - Almost two years after a barge tipped 11 pieces of equipment into the waters of Robson Bight ecological reserve, an operation will start this month to recover a fully laden fuel truck and a container of hydraulic oil barrels.

Gowlland Towing's 38-foot tug Kathy L was pulling the barge Crown Forest 84-12 down Johnstone Strait, bound for the Campbell River area on August 20, 2007 when the barge tipped, spilling the equipment containing an estimated 19,000 litres of petroleum into 350 metres of water.

Wires connected to heavy weights and underwater robots will help guide metal casings over the two pieces of equipment sitting on the ocean floor to try to minimize any possible oil spills, said Bas Coppes, project manager for Mammoet Salvage B.V., based in the Netherlands.

Coppes expects the oil will remain contained during the operation, but said the casings will protect against spills. "Diesel is lighter than water, so in case there's a crack in the tank, the diesel will be contained in the box," he said.

An underwater video, taken in December 2007, showed the tanker truck, which sank in 350 metres of water, is intact. Coppes said he'd be surprised if that has changed.

"If the diesel was inside then, there will be diesel inside now. Corrosion does not happen that quickly."

It's the first salvage job in Canada for Mammoet, the company that in 2001 raised the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea with 118 crewmen aboard. Last year, Mammoet raised the U864, a German U-boat that sank in 1945 off the coast of Norway carrying 60 tonnes of mercury.

"This one is a comparatively easy job," Coppes said, adding depending on the weather, the operation should take about 10 days and employ more than 30 people, most of them from B.C. Environmentalists and residents around the Alert Bay area are keeping their fingers crossed that no oil seeps out and that the threatened northern resident killer whales, which use Robson Bight for feeding and rubbing themselves on pebble beaches, stay away. Usually, resident orcas do not visit Robson Bight in April and May, but this year, a number of groups have come through, said Paul Spong, director of OrcaLab, a whale research station on Hanson Island.

The changing behaviour is a concern, not only because of the risk of whales being in the area when the equipment is raised, but also because it could mean food supplies are short elsewhere, Spong said.

"We are just going to be holding our breath that no one shows up," he said.

This is usually the safest time for avoiding whales and birds, but salmon fry are moving through the area, said Oonagh O'Connor of the Living Oceans Society. O'Connor said she'd like to have seen the other intact vehicles removed.

Provincial Environment Ministry and Department of Fisheries and Oceans staff will be on site and will have the final say on whether the operation goes ahead if whales are in the area, Coppes said.

The provincial and federal governments have decided, mainly because of cost, that the rest of the equipment, including vehicles, log loaders, a grappleyarder, bulldozer and ambulance, will be left on the bottom of the ocean.

The operation will cost about $2.5 million, with both governments initially picking up the tab, but the province hopes to recover its costs from Ted LeRoy Trucking of Chemainus, owner of the equipment.However, the company, which is charged with numerous pollution violations, declared bankruptcy last year. The Mammoet crew should be in Robson Bight by the end of the week.

Source: The Victoria Times Colonist