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.

In July, a pipeline leak near Maidstone, Saskatchewan, spilled about 250,000 litres of diluted oil sands bitumen into the North Saskatchewan River, killing wildlife and compromising drinking water for nearby communities, including Prince Albert. It was one of 11 spills in the province over the previous year. 

In October, a tugboat pulling an empty fuel barge ran aground near Bella Bella on the Great Bear Rainforest coastline, spilling diesel into the water. Stormy weather caused some of the containment booms to break. Shellfish operations and clam beds were put at risk and wildlife contaminated.

Governments and industry promoting fossil fuel infrastructure often talk about “world class” spill response. It’s one of the conditions B.C.’s government has imposed for approval of new oil pipelines. But we’re either not there or the term has little meaning. “This ‘world-class marine response’ did not happen here in Bella Bella,” Heiltsuk Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett told Metro News. 

If authorities have this much trouble responding to a relatively minor spill from a tugboat, how can they expect to adequately deal with a spill from a pipeline or a tanker full of diluted bitumen? The simple and disturbing truth is that it’s impossible to adequately clean up a large oil spill. A 2015 report commissioned by the City of Vancouver and the Tsleil-Waututh and Tsawout First Nations concluded that “collecting and removing oil from the sea surface is a challenging, time-sensitive, and often ineffective process, even under the most favourable conditions.”

What the oil and gas industry touts as “world class spill response” boils down to four methods: booms, skimmers, burning and chemical dispersants. An article at Smithsonian.com notes, “For small spills these technologies can sometimes make a difference, but only in sheltered waters. None has ever been effective in containing large spills.” Booms don’t work well in rough or icy waters, as was clear at the Bella Bella spill; skimmers merely clean the surface and often not effectively; burning causes pollution and greenhouse gas emissions; and dispersants just spread contaminants around, when they work at all.

Researchers have also found that cleaning oil-soaked birds rarely if ever increases their chances of survival. A tiny spot of oil can kill a seabird.

After the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaska coast, industry only recovered about 14 per cent of the oil — which is about average — at a cost of $2 billion. The 2011 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has cost more than $42 billion so far, and has not been overly effective. In that case, industry bombed the area with the dispersant Corexit, which killed bacteria that eat oil! Record numbers of bottlenose dolphins died.

We’re not going to stop transporting oil and gas overnight, so improving responses to spills on water and land is absolutely necessary. And increasing the safety of pipelines, tankers and trains that carry these dangerous products is also critical, as is stepping up monitoring and enforcement. With the Saskatchewan spill, the provincial government deemed an environmental assessment of a pipeline expansion connected to the one that leaked as unnecessary because the Environment Ministry did not consider it a “development.” University of Regina geography professor Emily Eaton, who has studied oil development, told the National Observerthat Saskatchewan “gives a pass” to most pipelines it regulates.

Beyond better response capability and technologies, and increased monitoring and enforcement, we have to stop shipping so much fossil fuel. The mad rush to exploit and sell as much oil, gas and coal as possible before markets dry up in the face of growing scarcity, climate change and ever-increasing and improving renewable energy options has led to a huge spike in the amount of fossil fuels shipped through pipelines, and by train and tanker — often with disastrous consequences, from the Gulf of Mexico BP spill to the tragic 2013 Lac-Mégantic railcar explosion. 

Spills and disasters illustrate the immediate negative impacts of our overreliance on fossil fuels. Climate change shows we can’t continue to burn coal, oil and gas, that we have to leave much of it in the ground. If we get on with it, we may still have time to manage the transition without catastrophic consequences. But the longer we delay, the more difficult it will become.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions fromDavid Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Image: The Nathan E Stewart sunken tug in stormy waters off Athlone Island in Heiltsuk territory. Photo: Heiltsuk 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.