Evidence of meeting #82 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was moratorium.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Manager, Emergencies Science and Technology Section, Department of the Environment
If it sinks quickly, then it would be difficult. You have to locate it first before you can respond to it.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Okay.
Moving on to the Nathan E. Stewart, which ran aground near Bella Bella in 2016, spilling more than 110,000 litres of its more than 200,000-litre fuel capacity, the spill impacted marine wildlife and altered the livelihoods of the members of the Heiltsuk Nation.
Cleanup efforts were repeatedly hampered by bad weather, and the vessel was not recovered until more than a month after it sank, I believe. If the tug's 6,600-tonne barge had been fully loaded when it hit the rocks, it could have spilled one-third of the volume of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of refined fuel.
This bill doesn't cover refined fuel products, so the threats of another Nathan E. Stewart remain. My question is this: does there need to be new legislation to cover spills like this, or how do we address this kind of spill, which seems large and affects a coastal community in a negative way? I'm not sure which department wants to take that.
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Maybe I'll touch on it first in terms of our response capability and, as I mentioned at the very start, the increased monitoring capability that we're putting into our centre.
On the very first part of it, we're monitoring those vessels as they go through our waters. As I said to Mr. Hardie, Transport Canada is also looking more closely and inspecting those vessels. All that part is meant to help prevent spills and be better aware of the traffic going through our waters.
That is also being expanded through the oceans protection plan to allow other communities, including first nations communities, to have a better awareness of what traffic is going through their waters, or what they claim to be their waters. That awareness is very important for us to be better able to understand the risks going through our waters.
When and if something does happen, though, the initiatives we have to increase our environmental response capability, both currently and under the oceans protection plan, will help to deal with issues like the Nathan E. Stewart incident in Bella Bella.
We have a number of initiatives. One is to start to integrate first nations communities, particularly into the marine safety system but also into the environmental protection system, so that they can better support an incident response. That training is starting now, and we want to include as many communities across the west coast as possible. That initiative will eventually move across to other parts of Canada.
We are also increasing our environmental response capability, both in Prince Rupert and Port Hardy, where we're putting in another staff depot, near Bella Bella. While specifically we could put a depot anywhere across the west coast, we're looking at areas that we think are best able to help in responding to an incident.
From a monitoring point of view, better awareness of the traffic going through our waters, Transport Canada's role in increasing inspection for more risky types of vessels, and the increase in our response capability are all helping to reduce the risk from traffic on the west coast.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
That was a perfect segue into some of the questions that I have for Mr. Lick with respect to a maritime domain awareness program. I'm fortunate in that I have a company, Accipiter, in my riding that is working on a new program to expand our abilities to have a binational sharing of information that would look at the logistics distribution systems, but as well look at the sharing of environmental trends.
Mr. Lick, what limits do we currently have on surveillance technology with respect to not only the trends with traffic movement but also with environmental monitoring?
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I'll touch on the first part of your question first.
With respect to limits and in terms of surveillance technology, all types of ship traffic that we're talking about, particularly the traffic that comes under the proposed moratorium that would prohibit over 12,500 tonnes, are required by law to carry the automatic identification system that transponds their signal, as well as a lot of other data about the ship itself. That is one of the primary systems that we use to monitor shipping through our waters across Canada, including the west coast in this case. That system is very reliable. It allows us to see exactly where the ships are.
I should talk a little bit about all the reporting that goes on before any of these ships come into our waters, the 96-hour PAIR report. That gives a whole range of information that ships need to report 96 hours before they even enter our Canadian waters. That includes the type of cargo, the ship's name, and all that type of information that we can use to assess the risk of that ship coming onto our waters.
The AIS, the automatic identification system system, is one of the main systems we use, but the other one that we use particularly is radar. That gives us a much closer, more accurate view, depending on where you are, of particular areas of risk that we see across Canada. In this case, we're talking about the west coast. We have radars on the west coast already in particular areas. We're installing six new radars on the west coast that will allow us to see particular areas that we feel are more at risk. The capital project that is installing those will go further than that later on as well.
That radar and AIS information gives us—I'm not going to give a percentage per se—a very accurate view of the traffic that we're talking about in our waters, anywhere from the barge traffic that Mr. Donnelly was talking about with the Nathan E. Stewart up to the largest tankers.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
With respect to the radar as a service, as well as the e-technology and e-navigation capacities that can be introduced with new technologies, do you find, not only with respect to current and real time, but also the management of that data, that it is a benefit? Once again, you can analyze those trends, and not only have fluidity with respect to the traffic itself, but also with respect to ensuring that the environmental concerns can be looked at in a proactive manner so that solutions can be found before an incident happens, versus being reactive.
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The traffic data is not much good as data itself. What we need to do is turn it into—and I'm being a little bit facetious here—information, really.
As we're looking at the traffic in real time, our radio officers at the MCTS centres are very much aware of and, in particular vessel traffic zones, are controlling the traffic as it goes through there. When we look at trends, we're not only looking at the trends in just how much traffic is going through, but where it is going through. That comes with our partners, Environment Canada, NRCan, and Transport Canada, to look at the risk and to look at the particularly sensitive areas that the traffic may be going through.
Then we are looking at plans to deal with a possible incident. We are looking at putting caches of environmental response equipment in particular areas of risk according to the environmental impact that it may have in those a particular areas and staffing those depots and so on. That whole planning process to look at risk, to look at sensitivities, and to look at impact is using that data to be able to have the best response, if needed.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
That said, when you look at past incidents—for example, with the Exxon Valdez situation in Alaska, and obviously you've learned something from that—and these areas where the moratorium is being located, do you find a similarity to the geography of this area versus other areas that have had these situations happen?
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That's a fairly broad question.
I would say, without getting into speculation, that certainly the area of the north coast where the proposed moratorium will be in place has many similarities, just simply because of geography, to where the Exxon Valdez cracked up.
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The area of the proposed moratorium is a particularly sensitive area. This is not truly my expertise, but it is a particularly sensitive area.
Getting back to your question, with the similarities to any incident like that of the Exxon Valdez, we not only look at the risk of the particular ship itself, but as I've stated before, we also look at the sensitivities of those particular areas the traffic is going through. Then those plans are put in place to deal with it. One of those plans, in essence, is the moratorium.
November 21st, 2017 / 4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you.
I guess the information I want to extract here is more a comparison across time. Basically we're here because of a policy decision in 1972. Then there was the voluntary moratorium in 1988. Now we're in 2017. As I was saying, the information I want to extract is whether the risks have changed and if we've adapted to those risks.
I'll start with the enforcement side, the Department of the Environment. Over the years, from 1972 to now, are there particular types of offenders that are repeat offenders, or have you seen something changing over the years?
Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment
I'll start, and I'll throw it to my colleague in a moment.
You just asked a really broad question. We'd have to go back and look at a lot of data to give you a proper response.
Liberal
Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment
Not that I'd want to say here on the record. To really answer your question well, we'd have to get back to you, but we can provide you with data on that.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you.
In terms of the science, you were talking about everything that you take into account—stickiness, persistence. Does anything jump out at you in terms of the types of goods being transported? Because of technology, has the type of oil changed in any way?
Director, Environmental Science and Technology Laboratories, Department of the Environment
Nothing comes to mind that really sticks out.
We do have a database of a lot of conventional oils, the heavy oils, in terms of their physical and chemical behaviours. We are, through the OPP, doing more work on bitumen products. We're trying to look at volumes being shipped across the country to try to understand the behaviour when it's spilled into the environment. It's something that we're continually trying to catch on to in doing the research.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Then I guess it's just the use of the water, really, that's still the risk, and not necessarily the technology or the kind of offender.
This now takes me over to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Mr. Lick, you said that on average, there are three polluters a day that you address.
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
When I say “pollution incidents”, that could be anything from a small spill from somebody filling their fuel tank on a 16-foot runabout to more major spills, but I have to say that the evidence is very clear that there have been very few—and they're extremely rare—big spills. They are not that common at all.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I'm glad you clarified that, because that was my next question.
In terms of the six....
How am I doing on time?
