The unmistakable rainbow sheen of diesel on the water still haunts the Heiltsuk community. It’s been over four years since an articulated tugboat called the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground near Bella Bella, B.C., spilling 110,000 litres of diesel, lubricants and other pollutants into the sea.  

After the tugboat hit the rocks near Gale Creek in the Seaforth Channel, an important site for seafood harvesting, it took the Canadian Coast Guard three hours to notify the Heiltsuk, who were given no instruction on what to do. Community members jumped in their boats and rushed to the site.

“It was really intense and quite heartbreaking,” Yáláƛí Megan Humchitt, a councillor with the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, said in an interview. 

Humchitt, who grew up in Bella Bella and spent much of her childhood on the water with her dad, a Hereditary Chief and fisherman, was one of the first responders to the scene, where community members waited 17 hours for a Transport Canada-certified spill response team deployed from Prince Rupert to arrive.

Ever since the disaster, the nation has been working toward establishing the Indigenous Marine Response Centre in Heiltsuk territory, which would enable them to respond quickly and efficiently to emergencies. 

On Tuesday, the Heiltsuk Nation, the Canadian Coast Guard and Transport Canada announced a memorandum of understanding that paves the way to create a Heiltsuk marine emergency response team and plan for how that team will complement the long-term plans for the response centre. 

“We’re mariners, we live on the coast. Our community has always responded to vessels in distress,” Heiltsuk Chief Councillor K̓áwáziɫ Marilyn Slett said in an interview. “This MOU allows us to chart the next steps to expand response when it comes to oceans protection in Heiltsuk territory.”

Heiltsuk Chief Councillor K̓áwáziɫ Marilyn Slett says a memorandum of understanding signed by the First Nation, the Canadian Coast Guard and Transport Canada helps the Heiltsuk take the necessary steps to protect their territory. Photo: Louise Whitehouse / The Narwhal

Humchitt said the agreement cements the relationship between the Heiltsuk Nation and the federal agencies.

“It feels a little surreal to be honest,” she said. “It’s taken a lot of work to get here.” 

Roger Girouard, assistant commissioner for the Canadian Coast Guard, said the agreement charts a course for long-term, lasting relationships.

“I want it to be an example, to those that work for me and those youngsters in their community, that the leadership believes in each other,” he said. “We’ve arrived at a place where, yes, trust was in short supply once and has its tenuous moments still, but we have decided to take this step for the future.”

Heiltsuk-led response centre ‘something that needs to be celebrated’

Among the priorities listed in the document is developing a plan to improve communications between the federal agencies and the Heiltsuk Nation, and to figure out how everyone will work together if there is another incident.  

The agreement also outlines priorities for training the emergency response team, including providing members with the opportunity to participate in coast guard-led training exercises. The emergency response team will be Heiltsuk-based and staffed by members of the community. Humchitt said the coast guard has already taken action by committing to funding and training 12 people. The federal agencies also committed to seeking funding to purchase equipment for the response team.

It will take time to develop and complete the training and figure out how the team will complement existing spill response operations and how it fits into the nation’s vision for a Heiltsuk-based response centre. There isn’t a specific timeline in place, but Humchitt said the nation will be posting the opportunities soon and initial training will take place over the coming year. 

“Exploring the next steps to ensure protection of the marine management in Heiltsuk territory is exactly what this does — and that’s something that needs to be celebrated,” Humchitt said. 

A man cleans up diesel from the Nathan E. Stewart spill near Gale Creek, not far from Bella Bella, B.C., on Oct. 29, 2016. Photo: Tavish Campbell / Heiltsuk Tribal Council

Girouard said the agreement is a helpful reminder of what the shared goals are. 

“It gives us both a to-do list. I think it’s smart in terms of focusing on what the key priorities are.”

He added the process is challenging, in part because this kind of collaboration has never been done before.

“It’s going to be a bit of a crunchy conversation at times, but nothing new of value ever got built easily.”

In the meantime, plans for the Indigenous Marine Response Centre will move forward. The nation partnered with Horizon Maritime, a Canadian company that specializes in marine operations, to form Heiltsuk Horizon, which is currently looking into possible locations to build the response centre. 

The centre will be operated by 37 full-time local employees with intimate knowledge of the region, the tides and the weather conditions. It will be equipped with vessels and equipment designed to contain spills in the area, which is subject to extreme weather conditions and complex tidal systems. The centre’s location on the central coast will mean crews could respond to any emergencies in the territory within five hours or less. The Heiltsuk proposal estimates annual operating costs at $6.8 million. 

Spill response training complements other Heiltsuk initiatives to protect their territory     

Slett said the Heiltsuk are taking advantage of every opportunity available to increase capacity and develop knowledge.

Last year, for example, the Heiltsuk joined four other First Nations in forming Canada’s first Indigenous coast guard auxiliary. This provided the community with training and equipment to respond to marine emergencies. While the auxiliary is focused on search and rescue activities, its close collaboration with the coast guard helps Heiltsuk mariners understand how the federal agency operates. Funding for the auxiliary also equipped community boats with sophisticated communication and navigation equipment, which could be used in future emergency situations.  

Members of the Canada’s first Indigenous coast guard auxiliary participate in a training exercise in Bamfield, B.C. Photo: Andrew Szeto / Coastal Nations Coast Guard Auxiliary

The community has also been developing maps that identify culturally sensitive areas, including important seafood resources such as clam beds. This information can be used to inform how responders, whether Heiltsuk or non-Indigenous, deal with potential spills. 

Humchitt said while the Heiltsuk Nation is still in a vulnerable position, if a ship got hung up on the rocks tomorrow, events would unfold differently. She explained that planning the Indigenous Marine Response Centre and communicating with the federal agencies has helped community members develop a deeper understanding of emergency response procedures.

“We know what an incident command post looks like, we are well versed in spill response techniques. Even just the jargon and speaking the language of spill response is something that we are now also versed in.”

On Oct. 13, 2016, the Nathan E. Stewart tugboat ran aground near Bella Bella, B.C., spilling more than 110,000 litres of diesel and other pollutants into the heart of Heiltsuk territory. Photo: April Bencze / Heiltsuk Tribal Council

Heiltsuk knowledge and experience could support other coastal communities  

Slett said the Heiltsuk community has always fought to protect the land and waters, citing the nation’s support for the oil tanker moratorium and its testimonies at the National Energy Board hearing on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. 

“Our way of life and how we live is connected to our land and our waters,” Slett said. “It underscores everything that we do in terms of protecting the marine ecosystem.”

Heiltsuk men prepare salmon on their territory. The nation’s way of life is intimately connected to its waters, which it has worked hard to protect. Photo: Louise Whitehouse / The Narwhal

Hereditary Chief Harvey Humchitt told The Narwhal the sinking of the tugboat changed the way the community thought about its role in protecting B.C.’s waters.

“Heiltsuk have always relied on the ocean,” he said. “What we’ve experienced from Nathan E. Stewart, we would never want to see that happen to anyone on the coast.”

He said the Heiltsuk want to apply their knowledge to protect the waters for everyone, not just the community.  

His daughter agreed and said that all this work can serve as an example to other First Nations along the coast.

“Hopefully, one day, we’ll have our [Indigenous Marine Response Centre] built and it will be fully operational not only as a centre of excellence for spill response and emergency response and training for Heiltsuk, but also for our Indigenous relatives to the south and to the north,” she said.

The memorandum of understanding notes that the Heiltsuk-based team is a “pilot for what community-based oil spill response could look like in the central coast.” Slett and Humchitt said the nation is open to sharing knowledge with other Indigenous communities.

“As Indigenous people who are always here and always on the water, we are always going to be the first responders,” Humchitt said. “We need to have that technology, that knowledge, that equipment situated in our own territories, and people to be able to know what to do when there’s another incident. And the likelihood of another incident just increases as tanker traffic increases.”

“We just have to be prepared.”

Read more: Heiltsuk rising: inside the cultural resurgence of one B.C. First Nation

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Kelly Brown was awoken at 4:30 a.m. on October 13, 2016, by the kind of phone call nobody ever wants to receive: an environmental catastrophe was unfolding a 20-minute boat ride up the coast from his home in the community of Bella Bella.

“I had to call this guy back because I wanted to make sure — because I’m half asleep — wanted to make sure that I heard him right, that there’s a tug that ran aground in our territory,” he recalls.

Brown is the director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management department, the branch of the Heiltsuk government in charge of the environmental stewardship of the First Nation’s traditional territory.

Two hours later he was on site with a team ready to respond.

“It was total chaos,” says hereditary chief Harvey Humchitt.

The Nathan E. Stewart, a 30-metre tugboat owned by the Kirby Corporation based in Houston, Texas, had failed to make a turn as it headed south. Instead, it ploughed into a reef. The barge it was pushing — a fuel barge with a capacity of 10,000 tons of fossil fuels, but which was mercifully empty — was caught on the reef while boats and ships of all sizes gathered to watch helplessly.

ICYMI: Diesel Spill Near Bella Bella Exposes B.C.’s Deficient Oil Spill Response Regime

“No one knew who was giving the orders,” Brown says. The captain of the Nathan E. Stewart had declined aid from the three Coast Guard vessels at the scene.

“We could hear the barge banging against the rock,” he says. “When we got there, there was already some fuel in the water, but not a lot.”

That quickly changed when the tug sank. The fuel started coming faster and faster; in the end, more than 110,000 litres of diesel fuel, along with more than 2,000 litres of lubricant, were released into the fast-moving currents of Seaforth Channel.

That milky, foul-smelling mixture washed ashore along the coast, coating the shoreline where 50 people made their living harvesting butter and manila clams.

“About 90 per cent of the [commercial] harvest comes out of Gale Creek,” says Russell Windsor, who made a living digging clams there prior to the spill.

The clam harvest was cancelled last year. This year, it likely won’t go ahead either, and it’s unknown how long it could remain closed.

The loss was more than economic. Gale Creek is also a site of huge cultural significance to the community.

“When I was younger I was brought out here to learn how to fish, hunt, clam dig,” says Windsor, floating at the exact spot from which he watched the spill. “This is one of the learning grounds for the Heiltsuk people… You can feed all of Bella Bella right now with all the food that can be harvested here.”

No one has brought children to Gale Creek to learn to harvest this year. Other sites around the territory are being looked at for clam harvesting, but Brown doubts enough could be gathered to replace what has been compromised by the spill.

“It’ll be one year officially that this particular vessel ran ashore,” Brown says. “And we’ve been paying for it since.”

Slow Response, Little Follow-Through

The accident happened at 1 a.m. Witnesses saw the fuel leaking at 5:30 a.m. By 6:30, Heiltsuk first responders were on scene, but lacked the booms and pads that would be capable of containing and absorbing the diesel fuel.

The official responders, a team subcontracted by Western Canada Marine Response Corporation (WCMRC), meanwhile, were dispatched from Prince Rupert. But they didn’t arrive on scene until 7 p.m., 16 hours after the accident happened. By then, it was getting dark, and nothing could be done until the next day.

ICYMI: ‘Nothing Has Changed’: B.C.’s Botched Oil Spill Response Haunts First Nation

“There’s no ‘world-class’ spill response here,” Brown says, referring to the former Conservative government’s claim in 2015, which was intended to assuage fears of a spill along the Central Coast and help build social licence for oil pipelines from Alberta.

That lack of a response has bled into the ongoing monitoring of the health of the spill site. A week after the accident, Kirby gave the First Nation $250,000 to assist in cleanup efforts. But Brown says the last time the company conducted an assessment of the environmental health of the site was December 2016, just a month after the sunken tug was recovered.

He estimates the cost of a comprehensive assessment of the current and long-term impacts of the spill will be over $500,000.

In the interim, the First Nation says Kirby and the provincial government have been negotiating in secret to determine responsibility for, and scope of, future environmental impact assessments.

‘No World-Class Spill Response Here’: First Nation Pursues Lawsuit 1 Year After Tug Disaster https://t.co/35B13lF3vb @HeiltsukCouncil

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 13, 2017

Lawsuit Coming

The Heiltsuk First Nation plans to pursue legal action.

“Since this nightmare began, the polluter and provincial and federal governments have ignored our questions and environmental concerns, our collaboration attempts, and our rights as indigenous people,” said Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett in a statement released to media. “We have no choice but to turn to the courts.”

The First Nation is seeking damages for the incident, including its effect on the harvests in Gale Creek and all the associated losses that has meant for the community.

Speaking to the Globe and Mail, Kirby said it would rather “work to find pragmatic solutions” than “engage in media battles and litigation” — but the First Nation shot back with a statement Friday morning, saying it, too, wants to find pragmatic solutions. It just has a different definition of “pragmatic” — the First Nation wants comprehensive assessments of the impacts on human, natural and cultural values.

“It is difficult for Heiltsuk to have faith in Kirby discussing pragmatic solutions when they won’t engage in a full impact assessment, and has left Heiltsuk with a $140,000 bill for sampling that they conducted earlier this year,” Slett said in the second statement.

ICYMI: North Coast Oil Tanker Ban Won’t Actually Ban Tankers Full of Oil Products on B.C.’s North Coast

It also wants the government and industry to better prepare for future incidents. From the wrong booms being deployed too late, to unclear leadership on scene, to a lack of safety equipment and training, the First Nation says it has learned it can no longer rely on outside parties in an environmental crisis.

The Nation has decided to take its defence of its own territory a step further.

“We’re trying to work on setting up a marine response centre close to Bella Bella.”

Windsor has already taken it upon himself to scrutinize the marine traffic heading through Heiltsuk waters, taking note of their contents and crews. He says he has seen Kirby Corporation vessels near Bella Bella since the spill.

“The Nathan E. Stewart taught the Heiltsuk a great lesson about oil spills,” Humchitt says.

*Updated October 13, 2017 4:07pm pst. This article previoulsy quoted an individual who claimed Kirby corporation had begun passing through Heiltsuk waters at night in unidentified vessels. We have since found we could not verify this claim and have removed the statement as a result. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

By Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett and Councillor Jaimie Harris, Heiltsuk Nation. This piece first appeared on The Tyee.

On Oct. 13, 2016, shortly after 1 a.m., Kirby Corporation’s tug the Nathan E. Stewart and its barge ran aground in the heart of Heiltsuk territory.

Less than eight hours later it had sunk, and 110,000 litres of diesel fuel and 2,000 litres of lubricants, heavy oils, other pollutants were released into the surrounding waters.

On charts, the area northwest of Bella Bella is known as Gale Passage, but to our people, this is Q’vúqvai.

For millennia, it has been the site of one our ancient tribal groups, the Q́vúqvaýáitx̌v; a home to ceremonial practices (past and present); and one of our richest harvest grounds. Until diesel saturated these shellfish beds last fall, our people harvested at least 25 food species from the area, including the red sea urchins, sea cucumber, herring roe, rockfish, halibut, and clams.

Despite deploying first responders as soon as possible, our people were helpless to stop the spill.

ICYMI: ‘Nothing Has Changed’: B.C.’s Botched Oil Spill Response Haunts First Nation

For us, the spill is a catastrophic injury to our food sources, culture, and economy and, thanks to Kirby Corporation and the governments of British Columbia and Canada, we expect the road to recovery will be a long one.

To date, Kirby Corporation has been unwilling to meet our requests for comprehensive post-spill research or a health impact assessment. Instead, the U.S.-owned corporation has purported to be proceeding with a limited environmental impact assessment, looking only at sampling and monitoring work conducted in a short period of time after the oil spill and a one-week period in early 2017. (Technically, impact assessments are not a required part of the federal and provincial government’s “world class” oil spill response.)

The B.C. Ministry of Environment and Kirby are apparently negotiating some kind of memorandum of agreement regarding the purported impact assessment, but have excluded us from those discussions.

In light of this inadequate and exclusionary approach, we are proceeding with our own impact assessment.

Why We're Taking the Gov to Court Over That Promise of 'World-Class' #OilSpill Response https://t.co/6FD36X483f #cdnpoli #nathanestewart

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 1, 2017

The assessment will have three parts: a Western science component, a traditional knowledge component, and a health impact assessment.

The Western science component will rely on the biological sciences to help determine the current and long-term impacts of the spill on the health of the ecosystem and marine resources.

The traditional assessment is based on Heiltsuk knowledge and will seek to understand how long it will be before harvesting can safely begin again.

ICYMI: North Coast Oil Tanker Ban Won’t Actually Ban Tankers Full of Oil Products on B.C.’s North Coast

Finally, the health impact assessment will be based on health, social science, and first person research used to determine the impacts of the events on our members. These include the social and economic consequences associated with the loss of harvest and the use of the impacted area.

In addition, we are preparing to take legal action, aiming to recover damages suffered by our people as well as to examine the actual state of Canada’s “world class” oil spill response system.

The case will be about recovering damages for loss of commercial harvesting of marine resources and loss of Aboriginal rights relating to food, but also relating to the social and ceremonial importance of marine resources — factors that the current oil spill liability framework does not account for. The existing framework excuses both the polluter and government from full responsibility for spill impacts on Aboriginal rights otherwise protected by the Constitution.

It is unacceptable that our social and cultural rights are paramount in principle, but evaporate in practice.

In light of this, along with the deficiencies we documented in the spill response and broader concerns related to the lack of consultation regarding marine plans in our territory, we will also be asking the courts to assess whether the existing regime of liability for oil spills can really be considered constitutional.

Based on our experience, the current system is anything but world-class, and government and polluters must be held accountable.

Councillor Jaimie Harris is visiting Salt Spring Island (Sept. 1) to share her account of the fuel spill. The tour is being organized by RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs) as a fundraiser for the Heiltsuk’s legal defense. The event also features underwater photography from the spill site. For details, click here.

Image: The sunken Nathan E. Stewart. Photo: Tavish Campbell and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On October 13, just after 1 a.m, and only eight months after British Columbia signed the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements — set in place to protect the world’s largest coastal temperate rainforest — the Nathan E. Stewart tugboat ran aground near Bella Bella.

Even though the 10,000-tonne fuel barge the tugboat was pushing was empty, the wreck managed to release more than 100,000 litres of diesel into the heart of the Heiltsuk First Nation’s traditional territory.

Now, six months after the American tug-barge on route from Alaska ran aground, the Heiltsuk First Nation has released a 75-page report on the Nathan E. Stewart oil spill that exposes the failures of Canada’s oil spill response system and a refusal from both the government and the company to share information with those affected by the spill.

“The first 48 hours were critical for mitigation,” Heiltsuk First Nation Chief Marilyn Slett told DeSmog Canada. “What the crew reported to us during interviews was that there was confusion about who was taking charge at the incident site.”

The First Nation’s integrated resource manager learned about the spill when he received a telephone call from the B.C. Ministry of Environment around 4:30 a.m. on October 13th. Vessels were on their way to Gale Passage by 6:30 that morning.

The report highlights delays in equipment arriving to the site, delays in deploying booms and an insufficient number of booms being made available.

Heiltsuk members who acted as first responders were not provided with any safety equipment or briefing on the health impacts related to the exposure to diesel, which is highly toxic.

The area most affected by the diesel leak, Gale Passage, is an important harvesting and ceremonial site and is considered a “breadbasket” of the Heiltsuk community. Since the spill the Heiltsuk has been forced to close its clam fishery.

It took responders over 30 days to remove the sunken tugboat from the water. By then the federal government had announced the “Oceans Protection Plan,”  which pledged $1.5 billion over five years to increase marine safety, marine oil spill cleanup research and restore marine ecosystems across Canada.

But according to Slett, the plan doesn’t amount to the world-class oil spill response regime British Columbians have been promised for years (a promise Premier Christy Clark reiterated in the wake of the Nathan E. Stewart spill).

“Nothing has changed since this spill,” Slett said.

“As it stands today, if something was to happen, we’re still under the same spill response regime.”

Slett added that, according to the Heiltsuk experience, “a real spill-response regime does not exist.”

One of the key-findings from the investigation was that the tugboat had been waived from requiring an onboard local pilot. And it appears that the tug replacing the Nathan E. Stewart is operating with the same waiver. Even though the tugboat repeatedly travelled through their territory, the Heiltsuk didn’t know about the waiver system until after the incident.

The proposed federal ban on oil tankers on the North Coast of B.C. also wouldn’t have prevented a vessel like the Nathan E. Stewart from traversing Heiltsuk water, because it falls just below the capacity limit proposed by the feds.

Since the Nathan E. Stewart spill, B.C. has approved the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, which would greatly increase the amount of oil tanker traffic in B.C. waters.

One of the conditions of approval — “world class oil spill response” — is something the province also failed to demonstrate in the wake of the 2015 Marathassa bunker fuel spill in Vancouver’s English Bay.

A report by West Coast Environmental Law in 2016 found the province’s oil response “overhaul” was seriously lacking.

“Changes that we recommend include that the policy level planning needs to be taken out of the hand of industry and led by both the provincial government and First Nations, with the opportunity for community input,” explained Gavin Smith, staff counsel at West Coast Environmental Law.

The report also recommended a citizens advisory council to allow for public input from people with localized knowledge.

Given that First Nations are often the first responders, Slett says First Nations and communities should be included in all decisions related to the movement of oil products through their land, especially oil spill response systems.

“We live on the coast. These are our traditional territories, we know the areas, we know the tides, we know the weather patterns, and we’re the first ones out there,” she said.

“What we can take from this and what we would like to see happen in conversations with B.C. and Canada is a recognized role for First Nations as first responders.”

Image: Diesel spill from the Nathan E. Stewart. Photo: Heiltsuk Tribal Council

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s November proposal to ban oil tanker traffic from B.C.’s north coast received kind reception on the west coast of Canada where the Heiltusk First Nation was still busy responding to a devastating diesel spill from the Nathan E. Stewart, a sunken fuel barge tug that was leaking fuel into shellfish harvest grounds near Bella Bella.

The tanker ban, however, won’t protect the coast from incidents like the Nathan E. Stewart from happening again, nor from the threat of future refined oil tankers passing through the same waters, according to a new analysis by West Coast Environmental Law.

Reviewing the tanker ban proposal, which has yet to be passed as legislation, West Coast identified numerous loopholes and exclusions that allow for the continued transport of oil on B.C.’s north coast via foreign fuel barges and even, potentially, in supertankers full of refined oil products like jet fuel.

Tanker Ban Leaves Door Wide Open for Refined Fuel Supertankers

“I would describe the bill as sort of a mixed bag,” Gavin smith, staff counsel with West Coast, told DeSmog Canada.

“It’s very positive in that it is strong enough to prevent projects like Northern Gateway from proceeding in the region, but it is not strong enough to prevent oil refinery and refined oil supertanker projects in the region.”

As it stands the proposed legislation does nothing to prevent the movement of supertankers laden with refined oil from traversing north coast waters.

And that’s of significant concern, Smith said, “because those projects are currently proposed and those applications have been submitted to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.”

There are currently two major oil refinery projects proposed for the Kitimat area.

Kitimat Clean, which is undergoing review with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (although that review was temporarily suspended in October), would refine 400,000 barrels of oil per day during it’s projected 50-year lifespan.

Kitimat Clean proposes to refine oil into products such as gasoline, jet fuel and propane for export in Very Large Crude Carriers or supertankers.

The Pacific Future Energy Refinery Project, proposed for 32 kilometres north of Kitimat, would refine 200,000 barrels of oil per day for a project lifespan of 60 years. The Pacific Future refinery is in the final stages of review with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

Tanker Ban Maintains Current Situation, Introduces New Risks

The tanker ban does restrict vessels larger than 12,500 tonnes from carrying crude oil products but not refined oil products.

Smith said Transport Canada was previously considering a 2,000 tonne threshold, but dramatically increased that figure to 12,500 tonnes.

“The 2,000 tonne was raised up in a Transport Canada discussion paper that was made public earlier this summer,” Smith said.

That 2,000 threshold really walks the line because it allows community shipments of fuel products to continue while not being so high as to allow for large-scale shipments of bulk oil products, he said.

West Coast has asked the federal government to provide an explanation for the increase in threshold.

“We recommend they provide a rational because from our perspective it came from nowhere.”

The 12,500 threshold is slightly higher than the highest recorded shipments in the regions, Smith said, “so they’ve tried to cap it at the highest level of shipments that have been occurring there.”

Jess Housty, council member of the Heiltsuk First Nation and responder to the sunken Nathan E. Stewart, said the current tanker ban is “simply inadequate” because it changes nothing.

“I think it’s important to note the tanker ban wouldn’t have prevented the Queen of the North from sinking and that’s still polluting waters. It wouldn’t have prevented the Nathan E. Stewart. It won’t prevent this kind of incident from happening again.”

The tanker ban as proposed is frustrating, Housty said, because Transport Minister Marc Garneau traveled to Heiltsuk territory to witness the diesel spill in November.

Housty said the tanker ban actually doesn’t affect any current vessel traffic on the North Coast, meaning all ongoing fuel barge traffic remains entirely untouched.

“I would challenge the federal government to give me a list of vessels that are actually impacted by this legislation. I can’t think of one.”

Housty concedes the tanker ban is significant in light of the rejected Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

But she added, “I think it’s important to note for the Heiltsuk, we weren’t just fighting Northern Gateway because it was crude oil. There were a million reasons why we had issues with that project.”

And many of those issues will still be relevant if those supertankers were carrying refined projects, Housty said.

“This tanker ban, not only does it not help us minimize the current risks we face, it gives permission for massive new risks that we don’t fully understand and I don’t think the general public would be comfortable with.”

Although a Voluntary Tanker Exclusion Zone already exists off the coast of British Columbia to prevent international transport of oil from entering internal coastal waters, U.S. shipments of oil have maintained a ‘right of innocent passage.’

That right has been the subject of criticism, which was renewed after the grounding of the Nathan E. Stewart, an American fuel barge tug (which was pushing an empty fuel barge at the time of grounding). 

To avoid provoking international tensions, the tanker ban does not alter this right and limits its cover to only import and export marine facilities.

North Coast Oil Tanker Ban Won’t Actually Ban Tankers Full of Oil Products on B.C.’s North Coast https://t.co/UDhLH6cZ1Y @dogwoodbc #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/wSg3h4sJM9

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 7, 2017

Tanker Ban to Be Locked in But Details Subject to Change

Smith said the federal government did not include a sunset clause in the tanker ban, which means the legislation is not likely to be undone going forward unless by act of Parliament.

However, the types of oil covered in the ban are subject to a definition that has yet to be determined and could change over time.

“The federal government has to answer this question of what do you want covered or encompassed in the oil tanker ban,” Smith said. “In the legislation itself it will say any crude oil cannot be carried in an oil tanker and crude oil will have a definition that will include things that you would expect like bitumen and so on.”

A ‘schedule’ appending the legislation will list other types of products, known as persistent oil products, will also be included in the ban. The types of oil products listed on that schedule can be changed however.

“That approach give the federal government some flexibility to decide what it does and does not want to include in the moratorium,” Smith said.

The federal government has not disclosed what types of fuels will listed on the schedule but did note that products such as jet fuel, propane and LNG will be permanently excluded from the ban.

Tanker Ban Could Still Be Strengthened

The tanker ban feels like another one of Justin Trudeau’s broken promises, Housty said.

“ I think this is a case were they have ticked a box and completely ignored the sprit of what needs to be done,” Housty said.

“I hoped there could have been more trust on this file.”

Smith said the federal government has plans to pass the tanker ban bill by March.

“In terms of what types of improvements, we feel the 2,000 threshold would ensure a good balance between community supply and preventing large-scale bulk shipments,” he said.

“We also think the types of oil kinds should be refined and crude oils writ large. It shouldn’t be quite as narrow as the federal government set out. And we propose the ban cover the entire Hecate Strait, Dixon Exit and Queen Charlotte Sound.”

Smith said ultimately the North Coast Tanker Ban is meant to protect the North Coast from oil tanker spills.

“These are the changes we feel would make the act the strongest legislation possible.”

Image: Sunken Nathan E. Stewart tug near Bella Bella, B.C. Photo: April Bencze/Heiltsuk Tribal Council

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Since the Liberals formed government last November, Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipeline have lobbied Ottawa an astounding 86 times, federal lobbying reports reveal.

Fifty-one of those meetings have taken place since August — which, funnily enough, is around the same time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau started backtracking on his commitment to ban oil tankers on B.C.’s north coast, a policy that would leave Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal dead in the water.

Since October last year, representatives from Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipeline met with representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office eight times, Transport Canada 10 times, Fisheries and Oceans Canada 10 times, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada 12 times, Natural Resources Canada 31 times, and mostly Liberal Members of Parliament 39 times to name just a few.

During this time Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipeline lobbyists met with more than 130 top-level chiefs of staff, policy directors, and ministers, records show.

Diesel Spill Off B.C. Coast Creating New Urgency Around Promised Tanker Ban

The issue of oil transport along the B.C. coast has been thrust back into the spotlight in the wake of ongoing diesel spill recovery efforts near Bella Bella.

Coastal residents were in a state of disbelief last night after learning an emergency response vessel, sent to B.C.’s central coast to retrieve the diesel-leaking Nathan E. Stewart, sank beside the sunken tug in windswept waters.

Since October 13, cleanup of the diesel spill in the traditional waters of the Heiltsuk First Nation has been slow and unsuccessful, hampered by a lack of response equipment, relief crews and favourable weather.

This has heightened criticism of the federal government and Trudeau who made a clear commitment to enact an oil tanker ban for the north B.C. coast during his election campaign last year. Trudeau even included formalizing the tanker ban on the list of ‘top priorities’ in Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s mandate letter in early November last year.

When pressed on his promise to ban tanker traffic — a proposal some say is not nearly comprehensive enough to protect the coast from vessels like the Nathan E. Stewart —Trudeau awkwardly dodged the question.

“Over the past year there’s been a lot of underinvestment by the federal government in marine safety and spill response. That’s something we’re absolutely committed to turning around,” Trudeau told Breakfast Television.

“And one of the symbols of that — as someone who knows Vancouver and the Lower Mainland as well as I do — one of the first things we did was reopen the Kits coast guard base because we understand that having responders there if something happens is absolutely essential.”

Jess Housty, tribal councillor for the Heiltsuk, took to Twitter to express her dismay with the Prime Minister’s comments.

“Saw your interview today,” Housty tweeted. “You know Kits is ~650km away from Bella Bella and Seaforth Channel, right?”

Nathan Cullen, MP for the Skeena-Bulkley Valley region in B.C. and environment critic for the NDP, said it is incredibly frustrating for coastal people to have the federal government stall on the tanker ban.

“When we are talking about protecting the coast out here, for the people who live here, that’s life and death,” Cullen told DeSmog Canada.

“The insult is twice because the promise was twofold: one, to bring in a tanker ban. It’s been a year and we’re still waiting. Two, to establish respectful relations with First Nations.”

“This is literally killing two birds with one stone,” Cullen said.

He added Trudeau’s inability to follow through on his promises is indication of a dangerous duplicity.

“We are a year in and one has to wonder if there are two Justin Trudeaus. One that campaigns and does public events and Twitter. The other that meets in the private backrooms in Ottawa with more oil lobbyists — one would imagine by a factor of 10 — than he has with environmental and First Nation leaders.”

Cullen said it isn’t just the diesel spill near Bella Bella that British Columbians have to worry about, but the pending decision on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

“You wonder if the West Coast is being thrown under the bus for nothing other than political calculation.”

John Horgan, leader of the B.C.NDP, said the response to what is unfolding in Bella Bella at both the federal and the provincial level has been “frustrating” and “astounding.”

“It does really speak to an Ottawa-based arrogance to believe that reigniting the much-needed Coast Guard base in Vancouver is somehow a benefit to the coast north of Vancouver Island all the way to Prince Rupert,” Horgan told DeSmog Canada.

When asked about Enbridge and Northern Gateway’s recent lobbying spree, Horgan said “the government should spend more time with the people of B.C. when considering these problems and less with those lobbying government offices.”

Lobbying Records Disclose the Bare Minimum: Watchdog

These high volumes of lobbying are troubling, according to Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, a government accountability watchdog.

“Everybody should be worried about the power of large corporations in terms of lobbying governments,” Conacher told DeSmog Canada.

“They not only have economic power in terms of threatening to sue under trade deals or to take their business elsewhere…but they also usually hire people who have connections to the ruling party to do their lobbying so they have undue and unethical political power as well.”

Conacher said Enbridge and Northern Gateway could be doing a lot more lobbying of the federal government without any disclosure due to vast amounts of lobbying loopholes.

The documented lobbying by Enbridge and Northern Gateway is likely just scratching the surface, he said.

“Only oral pre-arranged meetings are required to be documented in those monthly logs. So you shouldn’t think that’s all the lobbying: that’s just the lobbying they disclosed.”

– With files from James Wilt

Enbridge Northern Gateway Lobbying Aug 2015-Oct 2016 – Sheet1 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Image: Justin Trudeau via Flickr

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