In January 1973, the freighter Irish Stardust ran aground at Haddington Reef, rupturing two fuel tanks. Instead of seeking help, the captain refloated the ship and kept going.
The past month has offered an up-close look at freighters — those massive container ships that traverse the Juan de Fuca Strait and, too often lately, moor too close to shore.
The 2019 moratorium on oil tanker traffic provides some protection. It prohibits oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil or persistent oil products as cargo from stopping, loading or unloading at ports or marine installations in the prohibited area — from the Canada-U.S. border in the north, down to the point on British Columbia’s mainland across from the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
The establishment of marine response stations along the coast will help with oil spills. Having bases at Beecher Bay, Sidney, Nanaimo, Ucluelet and Port Alberni, as well as at Victoria, Vancouver and the Fraser River, will cut the time it takes crews to respond to marine spills. And that, history has shown, can help to limit the amount of oil spilled from a vessel and how far it spreads.
As it travelled, the freighter leaked more than 378,000 litres of heavy fuel oil into Broughton and Johnstone straits. According to a government biologist who investigated the spill, if alarm had been given immediately and the ship had remained near the accident site, the spill could have been contained in a relatively small, manageable area.
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