Trans Mountain Pipeline’s application documents show there’s a lot more going on in the routine tanker traffic past Victoria’s waterfront than meets the eye.
The company filed for permission last month to twin the line from Alberta to Burnaby. Included in the 15,000 pages of documents is a description of the typical trip a tanker will make from the terminal in Burrard Inlet, under three bridges, through the Salish Sea, past Victoria and out to the open ocean.
They have been making that run for years, along with other tankers plying Juan de Fuca Strait en route to U.S. refineries near Bellingham. The huge expansion that the project represents includes a number of changes and upgrades in the protocols that govern the trips.
First of all, the empty ship has to get to the terminal. It doesn’t belong to the pipeline company and it’s only contracted by the shipper. But it still has to meet a number of standards in Trans Mountain’s tanker-acceptance program, which are the conventional safety standards.
It picks up a pilot at Brotchie Ledge just off Victoria and navigates to Vancouver, where it falls under the Port of Metro Vancouver’s authority.
It would anchor in English Bay or just off the terminal to wait for a spot. When it is tied up at the dock, it is surrounded by a containment boom, with another boom on hand for backup. It takes 24 to 36 hours to load the ship, average capacity about 750,000 barrels.
When it’s loaded, two pilots come aboard, at least three tugs are tethered to the ship and it casts off, only during daylight hours.
The tugs work it under a rail bridge and the road bridge at the Second Narrows, then under Lions Gate Bridge.
The escort tugs fall away and the tanker sails on its own to Saturna Island. There, another tug is tethered to the tanker and guides it through a pass and into Haro Strait. It unties from the ship in Victoria, where the pilots disembark, but the tug continues in escort until the tanker passes Race Rocks.
Similar runs happen now about five times a month. The twinning of the line would boost Trans Mountain’s pipeline capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels, and bring three new berths at the terminal. So the number of tanker trips would increase to 34 a month.
The increased frequency brings with it the need for bigger safety margins. So the company is proposing an exclusion zone, meaning marine traffic would not be allowed within 500 metres of a tanker. Also considered is an increase in the requirement for pilots, to cover more of the trip. A host of other refinements is now under consideration by the federal government.
The application lists dozens of potential impacts and implications stemming from the marine component of the project. It argues that virtually all of them can be mitigated to some extent.
But the one issue that the company openly concedes is a problem that has not been solved concerns the noise and its effect on orcas.
It cites whale research finding that noise has “a significant adverse effect on the endangered southern resident killer whale population that uses the shipping lanes.”
Trans Mountain-sponsored underwater acoustic testing showed the extra shipping will increase noise and potential sensory disturbance of the whales.
“While the project’s contribution to overall sensory disturbance effects is small, the potential effect of the increase in project-related marine vessel traffic is considered to be high magnitude, high probability and significant for southern resident killer whales.”
The application states that with or without the increased traffic, the orcas (82 of them) are adversely affected by all kinds of marine traffic. It cites a project involving many players in the Salish Sea to find ways to reduce the underwater noise. That program is being developed. The only mitigation included in the application at this point is the idea of imposing a speed limit on the tugs that will be shuttling back and forth dealing with the tankers.
