Oil spill response time
Currently WCMRC has some 17 vessels poised to launch and fight an oil spill in the Vancouver and south B.C. coast, but not in one place; the $200 million upgrades would bring vessels together.
WCMRC say they have plans to build a central base in the Burrard Inlet, another on the Fraser River and 5 on Vancouver Island in Beecher Bay, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Sidney and Ucluelet. They say they would cut response time down to an oil spill dramatically.
Michael Lowry, the communications manager of WCMRC, told CBC News that should the pipeline go through they are “going to be adding probably about 115 employees and about 26 new response vessels.”
He said they now have crews on call round the clock but should the upgrades go through they would have crews at the Burrard Inlet base 24/7. That base would be located at what is now a vacant dock formerly used by the Prince Rupert Fishing Cooperative, near to New Brighton Park.
“The idea is we’d be able to bring our vessels together in a centralized location, and that’s really going to allow us to really reduce response time,” he said. “That particular facility would be manned 24/7, so in the event of a call — an activation call — our crews can be mobilized to respond within 10 to 15 minutes, so it’s really going to cut down on response times.”
Pipeline decision by end of year
These expansion proposals are a part of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal package. According to the proposal, granted conditional approval from the National Energy Board pending 157 conditions, the pipeline would pump 890,000 barrels of diluted bitumen (up from 390,000) from Alberta’s oil sands daily.
Lowry told CBC News reporter Rafferty Baker that the annual operation cost of the WCMRC that is covered by the oil and shipping industry ranges between nine and 10 million dollars. Should the Kinder Morgan pipeline be approved and upgrades go through and the annual operating cost will increase, he said. to between 50 and 60 million dollars.
There has been widespread opposition to the six to eight billion dollar proposed pipeline, including from the B.C. government, many municipal governments and a host of environmental groups and other activists.
The decision to grant or not grant the pipeline is in the hands of the federal cabinet and is expected before the end of 2016.
