Local government officials from Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast unanimously passed an emergency resolution last weekend in response to an oil spill in English Bay.
The resolution, brought forward by the District of Sechelt at the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities (AVICC) convention in Courtenay, calls for the province to order an independent audit of the current state of oil spill preparedness.
An estimated 2,700 litres of highly toxic bunker fuel were released on April 8 from the freighter Marathassa, resulting in beach closures as far as 12 kilometres away and recreational fisheries closures in Burrard Inlet. As of Tuesday, the Canadian Coast Guard said 90 per cent of the spill had been cleaned up.
The coast guard defended its response time after provincial officials publicly criticized it, and the Sechelt resolution said the spill “demonstrated a clear lack of capacity to respond to oil spill events in B.C.”
In an interview with CHEK News, Mayor Bruce Milne described the response as inadequate.
“If we have a small spill like that on a perfectly sunny, still day in Vancouver Harbour, what would happen if it was some other situation, if it was offshore a little bit, if it was under a storm?” Milne said. “When we have such a simple situation and we couldn’t respond to it very quickly, we really need to find out why.”
The unanimous vote from Vancouver Island and Coast delegates, Milne said, shows “how they actually feel about the marine environment and their current concerns and cautions about it.”
The resolution points out the “long-term viability and economies of B.C. coastal communities are dependent, in part, upon the protection and preservation of the local marine environment.”
The convention also passed a resolution objecting to the expansion of oil tanker traffic on the B.C. coast.
About 250 delegates attended the 66th annual AVICC convention, which ran from April 10 to 12.
