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Questions remain as cleanup crews work on St. Lawrence oil spill
News Articles | Montreal Gazette | Max Harrold | September 29, 2010
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MONTREAL — As cleanup crews continued their work late Wednesday, many questions about Tuesday night’s oil spill into the St. Lawrence River were yet to be answered.
Little is known about the exact cause or source of the spill — which by Wednesday morning coated a portion of the shoreline in east-end Montreal with a stinky molasses-coloured soup — or the chain of events following calls by residents to the fire department on Tuesday night.
By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, booms to contain the spill were in place, and enclosed two inlets on both sides of the Suncor Energy facility. Workers were adjusting and installing more booms throughout the morning.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Suncor’s Montreal refinery vice-president Bruno Francoeur said that of the 35 barrels of diesel that leaked out of its refinery conduit, 30 had been recovered. By Wednesday afternoon, he said, suction pipes had vacuumed up all but five barrels, or 500 litres, of the light fuel that floated on the water’s surface.
He said that the floating booms were installed at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. As a precautionary measure, Francoeur said, two booms had been placed downriver after an environmental surveyor noticed a sheen on the water.
The oil company executive stressed that by the time citizens smelled the diesel and called the fire department at around 9 p.m. on Tuesday night, Suncor was already aware of the problem.
All four conduits that carry diesel used to flush out the pipes after a loading were shut down for testing to find the one that had the breach, Francoeur said.
The response to the leak is troubling, said Maurice Vanier, a former local mayor who is part of a liaison group with 30 government, industrial and citizen members including oil companies — Suncor among them — as well as Environment Canada and the Montreal Department of Public Health.
“I don’t understand the confusion,” said Vanier. “I smelled bunker oil from my house a kilometre from the facility at 5 p.m. I’m sure of it.”
And what is puzzling, Vanier said, is that Suncor has been a good partner with local community groups, staging a simulated leak at its east-end refinery in June to practise its response measures.
The response to the leak shows that “we haven’t succeeded yet in having good communications between the emergency responders, the company and the different levels of government. We still have work to do,” he said.
Sylvie Bibeau, a toxicologist and biologist who is director of an environmental group that advocates for the St. Lawrence River, noted that the same facility has had problems before. On Dec. 29, 2008, 240,000 litres of heavy fuel oil leaked into the ground. “It took months to get answers on that one,” she said.
“We are in the dark about some very important things,” she added. “What is in that leak besides diesel? What was the pathway of the leak (based on the water currents and winds at the time)? We have migratory birds in the area. How will this affect them? What about the people? Residents go down to shoreline all the time. There are private docks in the area; how will those boats be affected? There are people who live here who need answers.”
Miroslav Misura, a 44-year-old construction worker who lives a few blocks from the facility, said the smell Tuesday night “was extremely strong. I felt that it must be at least a little dangerous.”
He walked to the shoreline to look at workers with breathing masks vacuuming the muck.
Suncor maintains it responded promptly.
“We put our emergency plan into action with the participation of Environment Canada and the Environment Department of Quebec. All protocols for incidence response were followed,” Francoeur said. “We took measures right away to make sure the air was safe for citizens or we would have evacuated.”
The spill was contained mostly to the west of the loading dock, he said, and a crew was out on the water Wednesday with power hoses to corral the slick and move it toward six pump trucks that were sucking up the spill.
“We expect the recovery till be finished by Thursday,” Francoeur said. “The booms will stay in place as long as necessary. The environmental damage, if any, will be determined by Environment Canada.”
Tagged with: oil spill, suncor, cleanup, st. lawrence river
