ocean | Northwest Coast Energy News

Activists ramp up scrutiny of Enbridge Northern Gateway plans. I Western approaches

Energy Environment

Dieter Wagner, of Douglas Channel Watch, briefs District of Kitimat Council on the perils of Wright Sound, Oct. 17, 2011. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

Activists in northwestern British Columbia are ramping up their scrutiny of Enbridge’s plans for the Northern Gateway pipeline, including the company’s contingency plans in case something goes wrong.

There is also growing controversy over one part of the pipeline process that is separate from the Joint Review Panel, the TERMPOL process that is supposed to ensure the safety of shipping on the west coast. TERMPOL, which is run by the Canadian Coast Guard on behalf of Transport Canada, has two major flaws, opponents say, first, that unlike the Joint Review Panel, TERMPOL’s proceedings are secret and, second, participation in the process for shipping companies and others is voluntary.

At the regular bi-weekly meeting of the District of Kitimat Council on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 Dieter Wagner, of the group Douglas Channel Watch gave a detailed analysis of what his group says are the dangers involved in shipping supertankers along the west coast of British Columbia and up the Douglas Channel to Kitimat.

Wagner told the Council that the TERMPOL documents on Northern Gateway shipping are confusing, contradictory and often difficult for the layperson, even those with years of experience in the waters of northwestern British Columbia to follow.

Wagner said that many areas of the coast approaching Douglas Channel are tricky to navigate with shallow water, rocks and shoals and thousands of crab traps, all very close to the proposed tanker routes. Wagner said the TERMPOL study shows that in some of the areas approaching the Channel, the charts show 10 fathoms, (60 feet or 18.28 metres) while the supertankers draw 70 feet.

Wagner said that on some parts of the coast, sailors can see kelp, often growing on gravel beds, and since growing kelp is less than 70 feet high, it is another area that could be damaged if a tanker runs aground.

That means, Wagner said, the smallest mistake would mean that tankers would run aground. He also pointed out the plans for the pilots to board the tankers once the ships are already in shallow water. He cautioned the plans say that under some circumstances, boarding by the pilot could be delayed, probably by bad weather and he doubted whether the companies involved would want to delay their tankers by two or three or more days, as BC Ferries are sometimes delayed in really rough weather.

The most dangerous area, Wagner said, is Wright Sound at the entrance to Douglas Channel, where the tankers would have to make a tight turn to enter the Channel. Ferries and other ships heading south also have to make a turn and it was in Wright Sound that the ferry Queen of the North went off course, struck Gill Island and sunk. Wagner told the District Council what the Gitga’ata First Nation said at last year’s Enbridge rally, the Queen of the North is still leaking oil.

(Other people in the Kitimat region, including the aboriginal people who have sailed the area for thousands of years, also express concern about Wright Sound, not only due to congestion from all the traffic using the Inside Passage but because of tricky winds and currents, especially in bad weather).

Wagner also said he doubted the extra navigational aides that Enbridge has promised to install along the route would stop human error accidents any more than traffic lights do.

He also said the up to 225 supertankers that would be used for the Northern Gateway project, crossing the Pacific to China or going down to California would greatly add to the green house gases going into the atmosphere from what he said was half a billion tons a fuel a year burned by the ships. Tugs, liquified natural gas tankers and other ships would also to the emissions.

He concluded by saying that there are no Canadian regulations governing the use of the escort tugs contemplated by Enbridge’s plans. Wagner also said that everything in the documents from Enbridge are just promises and there is no way at the moment to ensure that the promises are kept.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Councillor Randy Halyk, who is also a candidate for mayor, told his colleagues that one of the biggest problems with the review of the Northern Gateway is the secrecy of the TERMPOL process.

Russian sail training ship tracks Japanese tsunami debris crossing the Pacific

Environment Oceans

The Russian sail training vessel STS Pallada. (Pallada)

Ever since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of northeastern Japan, scientists have been using computer models to track the debris that was swept out to sea by the waves.

Now a Russian sail training vessel has found the debris in mid-Pacific nearing Midway Island.

The STS Pallada was on a sail training mission when the officers and crew became aware of the computer models created by the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawai at Manoa. So on its way home from Honolulu to Vladivostok the ship went looking for the debris.

The IPRC has now posted some excerpts from the Pallada’s log, as transmitted by Natalia Borodina, the Pallada Information and Education mate.

Sept. 22 in position 31.42.21 N and 174.45.21 E we picked up on board the Japanese fishing boat. Radioactivity normal, we’ve checked it with the Geiger counter. At approaches to the mentioned position (maybe 10-15 minutes before) we also sighted a TV set, fridge and a couple of home appliances.

Sept. 27 We keep sighting every day things like wood boards, plastic bottles, buoys from fishing nets (small and big ones). an object resembling a wash basin, other wastes. All these objects are floating by the ship.

With the data provided by the Pallada, the scientists in Hawaii are reviving the computer models of the debris drift. They expect the debris to reach Midway sometime this winter. Some debris will reach the main Hawaiian Islands and eventually the west coast of North America.

A map of the tsunami debris field by Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner of IPRC. The line shows the track of the Pallada where the debris was spotted between Sept. 21 and Sept. 28, 2011. The red rhombus (diamond) marks the location where the Japanese boat was found. The red circle denotes maximum debris density spotted by the Pallada. The purple shows the extent of the debris field from the updated university computer model as of Sept. 25. Click for larger image. (IPRC)

The crew of the Pallada hoists on board a Japanese boat, registered in Fukishima prefecture, and presumably washed out to sea during the March 11, 2011 tsunami. (Pallada)

IPRC/ Pallada news release (pdf)

DFO, Coast Guard to “shed services” documents obtained by CBC say

Environment Fishery

Documents obtained by CBC News say there are major cuts coming to DFO and the Canadian Coast Guard.

Fisheries and Oceans to ‘shed’ services

Employees of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans were told Wednesday their employer will soon be significantly smaller, and responsible for fewer things.

DFO also warned its workers that some of them will definitely not be working there once the department completes a $56.8-million budget-cutting plan by 2014.

“More savings are expected in the future,” said a letter signed by Deputy Minister Claire Dansereau and two other top officials.

The letter and supporting documents, which were obtained by CBC News, say reductions are part of a “dynamic change agenda,” and will apply broadly to services that include the Canadian Coast Guard.

US Coast Guard seizes “stateless” drift net boat off Alaska: AP

Fishery

Associated Press reporter Becky Bohrer in Juneau reports on the Bangun Perkasa a rat-infested illegal fishing boat with a 10 mile long drift net seized off Alaska.

Seized Vessel Shines Light on Illegal Fishing

The recent seizure of a stateless ship in international waters 2,600 miles off Alaska’s coast has spotlighted the challenge that the U.S. and other nations face in trying to crackdown on illegal fishing, an activity that accounts for up to $23.5 billion a year in global economic losses.

Finding rogue vessels in the vast, open ocean can be like finding a needle in a haystack. But U.S. officials and some environmentalists say progress is being made, including multinational patrol and enforcement agreements and the potential for sanctions against countries that engage in illegal, unreported and unregulated (or IUU) fishing.

Kitimat takes halibut fight to BC municipal convention

Environment Fishery

District of Kitimat councillor Randy Halyk, seen here at the local Jack Layton memorial on August 27, 2011, will be defending Kitimat’s resolution on halibut quotas at the Union of BC Municipalities convention. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

Kitimat is taking the fight over halibut allocation to the Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention to be held in Vancouver September 26 to September 30.

The resolution is one of two that the union will consider on the halibut controversry, the other comes from the Capital District on Vancouver Island,

Members of the District of Kitimat council will be at the convention to sponsor and defend the resolution.

The Kitimat resolution calls on the union to endorse:

Whereas the current federal allocation of the sustainable Pacific halibut resource is insufficient to provide reasonable catch and possession limits for the recreational and commercial sport fishery;

And whereas an increase in daily catch and possession limits would be of great benefit in attracting sports fishing tourists to coastal communities.

Therefore be it resolved that the UBCM support an increase in the allocation of the sustainable Pacific halibut resource to the sport fishing and requests that the federal Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans increase the catch limits to two per day and four in possession.

The Kitimat resolution was endorsed by the North Central Local Government Association

The overall province wide resolutions committee gave no recommendation on the Kitimat resolution saying it wasn’t clear what impact the resolution would have on the sports fishing industry. The committee added a note to the agenda that in 2010 members of the UBCM did endorse a resolution that requested the provincial and federal governments support both the commercial fishing industry and the sports fishing industry equitably as they are both critical economic generators for residents within the province.

The resolutions committee notes that British Columbia did express “support for the sustainability of both commercial and recreational fisheries in tidal waters.” The province apparently “highlighted a number of its activities related to ensuring fisheries sustainability and maximizing the economic and social benefits.”

The somewhat stronger resolution from the Capital Region did not receive an endorsement from the Association of Vancouver and Coast Communities and a “no recommendation” from the province wide resolution committee. That resolution says, in part that the allocation between the recreational and commercial sectors in the Canadian halibut fishery during years of low abundance will destroy the economic viability of coastal communities and deny Canadian citizens access to the common property resource of halibut.

It calls for a “more fair and equitable approach that would allow the recreational and commercial fishing industries to survive during years of low annual quotas,” it calls for the federal government to purchase or lease halibut quota from the commercial sector (rather than having the recreational sector purchase individually as the current Department of Fisheries and Oceans “pilot project” calls for) so that the recreational sector has a “permanent base limit,” that the season be guaranteed from February 1 to December 1 each year and that the limit be one halibut per day, two in possession. (The Department of Fisheries and Oceans stopped the recreational halibut season as of midnight Sept. 15 while allowing the commercial season to continue).

Earthquake, magnitude 6.4, strikes off west coast of Vancouver Island

Environment Earthquake

Last updated 1444 PT

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of Vancouver Island at 12:41 PM PT, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011. Iniitial reports say there were was no damage or injuries. The US Geological Survey first set the magnitude at 6.7, but that was later revised to 6.4 A 6.4 magnitude is considered a major earthquake. The quake was not felt in the Kitimat region but was in Vancouver Island towns like Campbell River, Port Alice and Port Hardy. In the small village of Zeballos, residents gathered quickly at an emergency gathering point, but it was soon clear that danger had passed and there were no injuries. Shaking was felt in Vancouver and Victoria, as far south as Seattle and east to Abbotsford.

US Geological Survey page on the Vancouver Island earthquake.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre has not issued a tsunami alert.

To: U.S. West Coast, Alaska, and British Columbia coastal regions
From: NOAA/NWS/West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center
Subject: Tsunami Information Statement #1 issued 09/9/2011 at 12:43PM PDT

A strong earthquake has occurred, but a tsunami IS NOT expected along the California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, or Alaska coast. NO tsunami warning, watch or advisory is in effect for these areas.

Based on the earthquake magnitude, location and historic tsunami records, a damaging tsunami IS NOT expected along the California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska coasts. Some of these areas may experience non-damaging sea level changes. At coastal locations which have experienced strong ground shaking, local tsunamis are possible due to underwater landslides.

The USGS says the epicentre was 119 km WNW of Ucluelet, 138 km WSW of Campbell River, 140 km SSE of Port Hardy and 289 km WNW of Victoria.

US Geological Survey maps showing history of earthquakes off Vancouver Island.

Earthquakes Canada information page from Natural Resources Canada.

Emergency Info BC

Northwest coast hazards

This detail of the Natural Resources Canada/ Earthquakes Canada shows the historical record of earthquakes along the northwest coast of British Columbia. The larger the circle, the greater the magnitude.

Most, not all, the earthquakes took place in the tetonic plate boundaries off the coast in the middle of the Pacfic Ocean, although the map does also show quakes on Haidi Gwaii. However, large quakes can be felt far inland. The magnitude 9.2 Good Friday earthquake in Alaska in 1964 did shake the town of Kitimat.

Media links

CBC :Earthquake strikes off Vancouver Island’s west coast

Global BC 6.4 earthquake hits off Vancouver Island

Globe and Mail
6.4 earthquake hits off Vancouver Island

Harper kills bitumen export ban, support for ocean monitoring group: reports

Energy Links

According to media reports, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has killed support for the Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative (PNCIMA) set up to monitor the ocean on the northern BC coast, while at the same time killing a plan to ban export of bitumen to countries with poor environmental records.

The Calgary Herald, in Harper backs off from initiative that threatens opposition to Northern Gateway pipeline

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has withdrawn support from a deal with the B.C. government and First Nations due to concerns about excessive influence by U.S.-funded environmental groups in the development of an oceans management plan for the B.C. north coast….

There were specific concerns that a new plan being developed under the Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative (PNCIMA) could be used to rally opposition to Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.’s proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline that would funnel diluted bitumen crude from Alberta’s oilsands sector to Asian markets docking at Kitimat, B.C.

A letter dated Sept. 1, and sent to the B.C. government, three First Nations groups and the environmental organization Tides Canada, said Ottawa is withdrawing support for a proposed agreement that would have resulted in $8.3 million, from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of Palo Alto, California, to fund the PNCIMA process.

The letter, from Fisheries and Oceans Canada regional director general Susan Farlinger, said the government still intends to come up with an oceans management plan by 2012 in co-operation with B.C. and First Nations.

The Vancouver Sun reports Conservatives’ promise to restrict bitumen exports falls by wayside

The Harper government has quietly buried a controversial promise to ban bitumen exports to countries that are environmental laggards…

One person familiar with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s surprise announcement during the 2008 federal election campaign said the pledge was simply electioneering at the time and was to be “buried and never seen again.”

Alberta’s energy minister also wonders whether the campaign promise is even a government policy any longer, noting the issue has never been discussed with him during his two years in the portfolio.

However, a spokeswoman for federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Wednesday the government policy — designed to halt the flow of raw bitumen and jobs overseas — remains in place but is being regularly examined.

Link Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative

Editor’s note:A double standard?

On the issue of the PNCIMA, the controversy is over money for the organization from the foundation set up by the founder of Intel, Gordon Moore.

Moore is famous not only for starting the successful chip company but for Moore’s Law, which has governed the accelerating pace of technological change in the past decades and is described by Wikipedia in Moore’s original formulation: “The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. This trend has continued for more than half a century…” That simply means that computer processing power can be expected to double every two years.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, according to the Herald, called for the money to be channeled through a group called Tides Canada.

Support for Canadian environmental efforts by American foundations has long been the subject of a heated campaign by blogger Vivian Krause who told the Herald, “I’m pleased that taxpayers’ money will no longer further a foreign-funded campaign that is against Canadian interests,” Krause said, adding that foundation money should go to the developing world.

Krause says she is an independent commentator. She once worked as Corporate Development Manager for North America for NUTRECO, one of the world’s largest producers of farmed salmon and fish feed but disassociates herself from current public relations campaigns by the fish farming industry. Her online biography says she spent some part of her childhood in Kitimat.

Krause is a favourite of many of the right wing columnists across the PostMedia newspaper chain.

While Krause may have some valid points, one wonders why for Krause and her supporters on the business pages across Canada, that it is perfectly acceptable for the billionaires in the transnational energy industry, many of them American, (as well as the state owned Chinese energy companies) to spend corporate millions supporting the oil sands and the pipelines, while is not acceptable for another American capitalist billionaire to spend his money earned in the free market to support his views on the preservation of the environment.

Kelp has great potential as green biofuel studies suggest

Energy Environment Biofuel

A surfer enters the water on a stormy beach at Tywyn, Wales, July, 2008. Scientists from nearby Aberystwyth University have studied kelp as a potential biofuel. The kelp was growing near a rocky outcrop some kilometres south of Tywyn at Aberystwyth Beach near Ceredigion. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

Kelp has potential as a renewable biofuel resource because it is a fast-growing, large “macro-algae” that could be harvested, processed and turned into ethanol, methane or bio-oil, according to a recent study in Wales.

The study by Jessica Adams and colleagues at Aberystwyth University in the west of Wales was presented at a biology conference in Glasgow on July 4, 2011 and published in the journal Bioresource Technology.

Coastal Wales has a similar environment to the west coast of North America and both regions are abundant in kelp.

In her paper, Adams says that most biofuels today come from terrestrial sources such as agricultural products or forests, and both sources can cause environmental problems. Harvesting kelp for biofuel would mean that potential food crops, such as maize, would not be taken out of the food supply chain. She says the ocean accounts for half of the primary biomass on the planet, but has not been used very much in the search for biofuel.

Her study, assisted by the Energy and Resources Institute at the University of Leeds, concentrated on the potential that kelp has for producing fuel at various times of its life cycle during the year.

View Larger Map

By analyzing the chemical composition of kelp harvested at low tide at rocky outcrop on Abesrtystwyth Beach, Ceredigion, Wales, Adams and her colleagues determined the best time to harvest the kelp for use as potential biofuel, which in the case of Wales, was in July when the kelp had the highest levels of carbohydrates, including two key sugars, mannitol and laminarn, which are easily converted to biofuel. Those carbohydrates could be fermented or put through anaerobic digestion to produce either ethanol or methane. Another method is pyrolysis, a method of heating the fuel in the absence of oxygen, which can produce bio-oil.

Another advantage that kelp has over terrestrial plants is that it contains little cellulose and thus is easier to handle when creating biofuel.

The First Nations of British Columbia used the kelp for centuries, as a place to find fish, crustaceans and shell fish in the kelp beds or to hunt seals that fed on the fish. In some parts of the BC coast, First Nations used kelp branches to harvest herring roe (before the collapse of the herring stocks)

For the past century, modern use has concentrated on the minerals the kelp produces, it was burned to obtain soda ash (sodium carbonate) , used for the production of soap, ice cream and lotions as well as in some processes for making glass.

Kelp is increasingly popular as a health food, both as an edible seaweed and for health supplements. In British Columbia, kelp is harvested for health food at a time of peak mineral content, when the content is 25 per cent to 50 per cent minerals, including potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iodine. Salt extracted from BC kelp is high in potassium and thus attractive for people on low sodium diets.

For biofuel, however, the time when kelp is highest in minerals, and thus attractive to the current harvesters, is not the time it would be best for biofuel. Adams says: “Seaweed ash has previously been reported to contain, potassium, sodium and calcium-carbonate and high concentrations will lead to increased slagging, fouling and other ash related problems during thermochemical conversion.”

In Wales, Adams’ study showed that the mineral concentration in the kelp peaked in March and was lowest in July, a time when the carbohydrate content is also higher. She says “This means that a July harvest would provide the highest heating value and the lowest ash and alkali index values, making it the best month for harvesting for thermochemical conversion.”

It appears also that cleaner water will produce kelp that is better suited to biofuel conversion, since the kelp her study used from Cardigan Bay had a lower mineral content than kelp from areas off Cornwall where effluent from the tin mines was carried by rivers into the ocean in that region.

An earlier small pilot project in 2008 at a royal estate on the north coast of Scotland looked into the possibility of setting up a kelp farm that could potentially used for biofuels. That project showed that using kelp for biofuel meant that agricultural land did not have to be taken out of production for biofuel planting and even that agricultural runoff could be used to fertilize a concentrated kelp farm.

The species of kelp used in the Welsh study had high concentrations of both water and minerals and that is whyJuly was the optimal time for a possible biofuel harvest. Other species, in other areas, once studied, might be better suited to be used as biofuels. Adams concludes by saying: “Macroalgae or macroalgal residues could pryrolysted to create a bio-oil or used in hydrothermal liquefaction to make bio-crude in a process which does not require the initial drying of the feedstock.”

Map of the kelp beds on the north coast of Haida Gwaii, taken from the BC provincial government kelp inventory survey.

Correction: An earlier version of the story said the journal was Biosource Technology. This has been corrected to Bioresource Technology.

Links: Alaska legislature looks at state’s halibut crisis: Alaska Dispatch

Environment Fishery Link

In Alaska’s dispute over halibut allocation in that state, Alaska Dispatch is reporting State to look at proposed Alaska halibut charter regulations:

With a deadline fast approaching on a federal plan to reduce the number of fish allocated to Alaska halibut charter businesses and hand them over to commercial fishermen, a handful of state legislators say they are going to take a look at the issue. To date, the state has ignored a so-called “catch share plan” developed by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, an organization dominated by commercial fishing interests.

Earlier in August, the Alaska Dispatch, published articles highly critical of the state fishery management practices, called Alaska’s Mafia-style fisheries management.

Links: Halibut controversy continues

Environment Fishery Links

Comox Valley Echo

Halibut decision tramples rights

>Larry Peterson
I am absolutely stinking mad.
DFO is going to close down recreational halibut fishing as of Sept. 5? This action is an attack on my rights as a taxpaying, law-abiding Canadian citizen.

Victoria Times Colonist

Halibut season end hurts communities

By Lanny Sawchuk, Oak Bay Marine Group

Last week’s announcement of a shutdown of recreational halibut fishing is terrible news for coastal communities.
Our company operates businesses on the coast, including sports fishing resorts and marinas. Several will be severely impacted by this closure. Our employees will soon be dealing with guests unable to fulfil their plans to fish halibut, guests who in many cases travelled from great distances, at great expense, to have that experience. We’re also dealing with cancellations. We’ll be cutting back staffing accordingly, resulting in a ripple effect of lost economic activity for communities.