BP Canada plans to drill up to seven exploratory wells off the southeast coast of Nova Scotia that are at least 3.5 times the distance from land and up to twice the depth of the well beneath the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig.

The Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 after the Macondo well, located 1.5 kilometres below surface, blew out — resulting in the deaths of 11 men and the largest marine oil spill in history.*

The company’s proposed solution if a catastrophic blowout happens in Canadian waters relies on shipping a capping device from Norway, a process that is estimated to take between 12 to 19 days — but it could take between 13 and 25 days total to actually cap the well with the device.

In the meantime, two critical fisheries and countless marine species would be seriously endangered. The Sable Island National Park Reserve is less than 50 kilometres away.

“When you’re drilling that deep, you better know exactly what you’re doing,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, Atlantic director for the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “With the poor regulations and industry oversight that we perceive out there, we’re not reassured that’s happening. They’re very far from emergency and spill response.”

BP Canada declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this article.

Scotian shelf currently a ‘remarkably productive area’

The company’s four leases cover 1,398,180 hectares — about a quarter the size of Nova Scotia. Almost all of the leased area falls within an “Offshore Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area.”

It’s the specific location that is of concern to many.

The 700 kilometre Scotian Shelf, which effectively divides the Continental Shelf and the deeper Atlantic Ocean, serves as the site of remarkable biodiversity, including whales, seals, sea turtles, fish, corals and birds. That contributes to highly successful fisheries such as the nearby Georges Bank.

“The edge of the Scotian Shelf is a remarkably productive area and important for a lot of animals,” Hal Whitehead, professor of biology at Dalhousie University, told DeSmog Canada.

“It’s that the drilling is actually on and near the shelf that worries me most.”

“This is the kind of thing that terrifies us.” https://t.co/JPOyWt7y1o

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 15, 2018

BP proposes use of booms and dispersants after blowout

One proposed solution that BP mentioned in its environmental impact statement is using “booming and skimming operations” which help to physically contain oil within a particular area.

Fitzgerald called such a proposal “kind of laughable” given the incredibly large waves, sometimes as high as 10 metres during storms, that can occur off the coast.

In a 2010 interview with New Orleans’ Times-Picayune following the Deepwater Horizon spill, civil engineering professor Robert Bea said a boom’s rate of effectiveness in choppy saltwater is around 10 per cent: “In open turbulent water, you can’t catch the oil,” he said.

Then there’s the use of chemical dispersants, which break apart oil into smaller droplets and allow it to more easily mix with water. Almost seven million litres of a dispersant called Corexit was used following the Deepwater Horizon spill.

In the years since, a plethora of research has been published suggesting that the impacts of dispersants are far from harmless — and is actually toxic to coral and many microorganisms, including plankton. A recently published study by the National Institutes of Health also linked human exposure to Corexit with symptoms including coughing, wheezing and chest tightness.

“The efforts by the oil industry to convince our regulators that dispersant is a good idea are highly suspect,” said John Davis, director of the Clean Ocean Action Committee, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“Given the fact that it’s in major dispute from the scientific community, you should use the precautionary principle and not use the stuff until you understand its real impact.”

Shell drillboat dropped two kilometres of pipe during rough weather

Critics point to yet another major reason for concern — this time, a lot closer to home.

In 2016, a Shell Canada ship encountered harsh weather off the coast of Nova Scotia while attempting to drill an exploratory well. Two kilometres of pipe were lost, landing a mere 12 metres from the wellhead.

“If they had hit their own wellhead and if they had been at an oil-bearing site in terms of their drilling activity, they would have had a major disaster,” Davis told DeSmog Canada. “Nothing more than the luck of the draw allowed them to escape that. Nothing to do with their technical capabilities, nothing to do with their safety mechanisms: just plain luck.”

“This is the kind of thing that terrifies us,” Davis said.

Davis has a personal connection to the region: he’s been a fisher for almost half a century and his organization currently represents about 9,000 people involved in the fishery on the Scotian Shelf and nearby Georges Bank.

He said that a worst-case scenario — losing control of the wellhead during the middle of the winter with high northeasterly winds — would push oil and dispersant into the very successful fishing grounds within a week or two thanks to the strong, consistent Labrador Current.

He said that his group was very open to working with the oil and gas industry in the early stages of the process. But after encountering little success with regulators or industry to improve spill mitigation, they now oppose any oil and gas development in the region.

“We are working carefully to protect the sustainable resources that we have and to use them in a sustainable fashion,” he said. “We can demand that the oil and gas industry, if they’re going to try to function on the Scotian Shelf, have the same high level of regulatory process that we work under. That’s not the case.”

Offshore drilling produces drilling fluids, plastics, noise

Even if a catastrophic blowout doesn’t happen, the oil and gas activity from the exploratory wells may still have significant impacts on marine species that reside on the highly biodiverse Scotian Shelf.

Whitehead of Dalhousie University said that offshore oil and gas operations can produce toxic drilling fluids and plastics that are blown or dumped overboard, potentially having hazardous impacts on local whale populations.

The industry’s “very, very noisy methods” of drilling also impede the vital ability of whales and dolphins to sense and communicate.

“It can deafen them at the worst, drive them away from areas which are important to them and affect their ability to use natural sounds for things like avoiding predators and finding mates and social relationships,” he said.

BP plans to begin drilling by mid-2018, following approvals

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency released its draft environmental assessment report on November 22.

A month-long window followed allowing for public comment on the draft. Following the finalization of the report, it will be submitted to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna who will then provide BP Canada will an environmental assessment decision statement with a series of conditions.

Notably, the draft environmental assessment report included a recommended condition that in the case of a blowout, BP Canada should “begin the immediate mobilization of at least one capping stack and associated equipment to the project area to stop the spill,” seemingly endorsing the company’s plan.

BP Canada has indicated that it seeks to start drilling its first exploratory well in mid-2018. Each well takes 120 days to complete. It has committed to spending $1 billion in the exploratory process.

Environmental critics appear to be pessimistic about the situation, especially given the decisive role that the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board — which some describe as a captured regulator — plays in the approval and regulatory process. Fitzgerald added that now is not the time to approving new offshore processes given the deaths of 16 critically endangered North Atlantic right whales in 2017.

“It’s one thing to say that we’re going to be improving our environmental regulation in Canada and tackle climate change and protect the right whales,” she said.

“But if you’re not going to deal with some of these issues in the offshore, you’re not going to see much progress in those areas. The stakes are high. It could have huge implications if there was a disaster out there.”

*Correction made Feb. 2, 2018, at 9 p.m. The article originally incorrectly stated the depth of the Macondo well.

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This is a guest post by Michael Harris, originally published on iPolitics and reposted here with permission.

“I am on permanent call by God.”

That is how Farley Mowat at 92, bearded, blue-eyed, and bemused, describes his presence in the waiting-room of eternity.

This should be a time to make morning tea for his wife, Claire, listen to the bullfrogs harrumphing in the two ponds on his 200-acre sanctuary in River Bourgeois Cape Breton, and reflect on the closet-full of books in his study, all 44 of them, that he has written over an extraordinary life.

Instead, he has donned his literary armour and is riding out to face yet another dragon threatening the beauty and balance of nature – a proposed deep water oil-drilling operation in the heart of the Gulf of St. Lawrence – a project given the innocuous name “Old Harry.”

“I am doing this against my will in a way, getting involved at this time in life when I might get the Big Call tomorrow. But the bastards who have set this thing in motion are taking a perverse pleasure in doing it and must be opposed. They have decided to call their development “Old Harry.” The great swindle, you know, to give it a nice name that conjures up Uncle Harry. I suspect that they don’t know that in literature, ‘Old Harry’ is a synonym for the devil.”

Metaphysical resonances notwithstanding, the five provinces that border the proposed development would have hell to pay if there were ever a spill like the one that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico at BP’s Deep Water Horizon rig.

That’s because the channels and straits that make up the Gulf of St. Lawrence move in a counter-clockwise fashion, which means that the vast area is only flushed into the wider ocean once a year. Spilled oil would ride the mostly landlocked Gulf currents for a long time. That would put thousands of species, some of them already endangered, like the Blue Whale, at greater risk.

Making matters potentially worse, the site of the proposed development is the deep Laurentian Channel, the main artery in and out of the Gulf for 2,200 marine species – including Blue whale, Right whale and Leatherback turtle.

Farley Mowat it God’s waiting room with fellow activist in the new Gulf War, Mary Gorman, co-founder with Elizabeth May of the Save our Seas and Shoreline Coalition. Photo Cinefocus Canada.

In Canada’s pending Gulf War, Farley Mowat, lone-wolf and single-handed crusader, has a strong ally this time. Mary Gorman, a lobster fisherman’s wife turned unpaid activist, has been battling to protect the Gulf of St. Lawrence for 25 years.

“I like her because she’s got guts,” Mowat says, “and I trust her instincts. Mary is a daughter of the Gulf, one of the animals who lives here. She senses what is coming.”

In 1988, Gorman led the Battle of Boat Harbour to stop a local mill from dumping 26 million gallons of effluent into the Northumberland Strait near Pictou Landing First Nations community.

With Elizabeth May, she co-founded the Save our Seas and Shoreline Coalition to challenge oil and gas leases that had been granted off the pristine shores of Cape Breton Island.

Gorman says that the federal government has literally passed responsibility for protecting marine habitat to the very people who favour development, virtually erasing the line between industry and government.

“How did the protection of marine habitat end up in the hands of the offshore petroleum industry?” Gorman asked. “As it stands now, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada have signed memorandum of understanding with offshore boards deferring DFO and EC’s marine protection to these boards.”

(In April 2011, Gorman was voted a Canadian Green Hero. A documentary produced by Cinefocus Canada and based on Gorman’s fight to protect the Gulf of St. Lawrence will air on TVO on July 16 at 7:30 pm and again on July 21 at 8:30 pm. Mowat appears in the film.)

As for Gorman’s question, Farley Mowat thinks he knows why government has abdicated protection of the environment to bodies representing the petroleum industry. Sipping his illicit glass of chardonnay (his doctor has forbidden it), he says something has gone wrong with our national fermentation process; instead of wine, we are now producing vinegar as a country.

“Under the current system, the environment and resource development cannot be reconciled. The ones in power just don’t think the right way. It’s as if we are being governed by an alien species. It’s as if something rises from the Ottawa River and affects them all. They become zombies.”

Nor does Mowat believe that the anti-environment phenomenon is exclusive to the Canadian government.

“Governments worldwide do their best to diminish it, belittle it, until it gradually melts away. The policy now is to crucify the environment. Peter Kent wasn’t even a good illusion of an environment minister.”

Our interview is put on hold with the arrival of Mark, who is in charge of maintenance at the local fishplant. Farley tells him about the electrical switch that needs fixing and the gaps around the upstairs windows that are letting the ants in. As they talk, I take a slow inventory of the room full of memories of the author’s life – shells, bones, a silver mermaid, and the light fixture in the living room which has a desiccated hornet’s nest where the light bulb should be. Before he leaves, Mark comments on Farley’s list of tasks.

As you always tell me, this house is rotting from the top down.”

My puckish host returns seamlessly to the matter we had been discussing. To make his point about how governments work to discredit environmentalists, Mowat talks admiringly of his friend Paul Watson, who is now a fugitive from international justice. The author says the warrant against Watson from Costa Rica is trumped up with the connivance of Japan and countries like Canada.

“All he tried to do was keep the Japanese from whaling in protected areas. Now there is an Interpol red alert on Paul and he is a stateless person sailing on the high seas in the South Pacific. The only place he can land is deserted atolls inhabited by hermit crabs.”

But there was one other place he did land while he was being pursued and before he took to sea – the farmhouse looking out to sea from a hill on Grand Gulley Road at River Bourgeoise – the Mowat retreat.

“No one in Canada knows this but I entertained Paul when the authorities were looking for him and didn’t know where he was. The same authorities, I might add, who used to listen to my phone calls when they saw me as a ‘left-wing rebel.’ I just laughed about it and said ‘Good morning chaps’ whenever I used the phone.”

We walk into his main-floor writing room (a stately Underwood manual typewriter commands the desk) and I stop in front of a faded wanted poster, front-on and in profile, of Farley Mowat hanging on the wall. He laughs and tells me that it was Jack McClelland’s idea after Mowat was prevented from entering the U.S. on a book tour.

“Oh yeah, Farley My Discovery of America! They let me into Siberia to talk about my work but not the United States. I wrote the thing in three weeks. Fastest book I ever wrote.”

There is a dinner of home-made quiche and a salad made from greens from the Mowats’ fenced garden on the hillside, and a little of the forbidden chardonnay. Sea-shell pink peonies pose lavishly in their vase. I mention the photograph of Pierre Trudeau and Mowat in the living room. There is always a story.

“You know Pierre and Margaret came to visit us in the Magdalen Islands. He was travelling quietly that day – showed up in an ice-breaker and came ashore by helicopter. Margaret was pregnant with Justin. Just before dinner, I asked Pierre if he wanted to walk the grounds. I had half an acre planted in hemp seeds given to me by the mayor of Port Hope. Trudeau knew what they were but made no comment until I asked him what he thought of the grounds. “It’s a fine garden, Farley, but isn’t it time you cut your grass?”

Before I left, my host asked simply “Care for something to read?” I was escorted back into his study, where he opened the closet door where his books stood in a long, lovely line. I chose And No Bird Sang, his reminisces of the war when Captain Mowat bedevilled authority.

The war goes on and he still does.

Image Credit: Farley Mowat on the Canadian Encyclopedia

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