Thanks, Lucas.
My name is Alys Hoyland. I'm the youth program coordinator of the Pacific Rim chapter of Surfrider Foundation Canada. I've been leading the organization's response to marine cargo container spills. I'm grateful to live within the traditional and unceded territories of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation here in Tofino.
The full impact of container spills is hard to determine. The immediate ramifications of spills which happen in nearshore environments are the most tangible: solid waste polluting shorelines, entanglement of and injury to fauna and navigational hazards to boaters from floating debris.
However, spills that happen on the open ocean also have damaging consequences to shorelines and coastal ecosystems. Containers and their cargo, particularly plastics, can persist in the marine environment for decades, if not centuries, and circulate in ocean currents, absorbing pollutants and eventually making landfall.
Surfrider Canada has been on the front lines of marine debris mitigation efforts in B.C. for many years, including container spill response. In 2016, the Hanjin Seattle lost 35 empty containers near the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait. Fragments of containers and their plastic foam insulation lined the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The response was slow and debris was spreading, so Surfrider mobilized volunteers, liaising with various government agencies and first nations partners to execute debris removal efforts. Seven months later, some compensation was eventually obtained from Hanjin, but it was in no way commensurate to the scale that was required.
The magnitude of resources necessary to tackle this kind of spill demonstrated the urgent need for federal support, and Surfrider welcomed the development of motion 151, a national strategy to combat marine plastic pollution, which was to include the creation of annual dedicated [Technical difficulty—Editor].
In the wake of Zim Kingston, it's become clear that there is still considerable work to do to close the legislative gaps identified after Hanjin.
After hearing of the spill in 2021, Surfrider immediately began liaising with the Canadian Coast Guard and the BC Marine Debris Working Group. Our network has a long history of collaboration, and we had volunteer resources ready to deploy within days of the initial spill. Unfortunately, it was weeks before our group was tasked, and at that point king tides had refloated much of the spilled debris, distributing it over an increasingly large geographic area.
Furthermore, wind and wave action had already disintegrated some of the debris. Without a public manifest of lost cargo, given the extensive stretch of coastline affected we had serious concerns about how to accurately identify and monitor the spread of the debris in order to hold the responsible parties accountable for the full cost of cleanup.
To mitigate the impact of container spills in the coastal environment, it's essential to find ways to prevent spills, but when they do occur, Surfrider Canada is providing three recommendations for the committee to consider.
The first is to increase the response capacity in relation to marine cargo container spills, which must include the knowledge, skills and equipment necessary to address cleanup—