The mighty tug protects state waters

COMMENT:The rescue tug to which Fred Felleman refers in this article is based in Neah Bay, toward the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula. Its funding, which at present is picked up completely by the State of Washington, is in jeopardy. The continued operation of this tug is a serious matter for British Columbia, and Canada, but we have consistently avoided contributing anything to the effort.

Why is it a serious matter for us in BC?

Because Neah Bay is the ONLY appropriately equipped rescue tug that services the entire offshore region of BC. That is - the ONLY one. Other tugs, privately owned ones which are busy up and down the coast, can be dragged into service. Called "tugs of convenience", these work boats are not appropriately equipped, might not be anywhere within proximity to a ship in distress, and they first have to find a safe moorage for whatever barges or booms they are towing when called into emergency service. The tugs of convenience - merchant rescue boats - are not an adequate alternative, and should not be construed as an acceptable alternative to dedicated rescue tugs.

For BC, the Neah Bay rescue tug is an excellent boat to have so close. But in times of extreme weather, it may be busy dealing with other incidents when it is needed on the BC offshore. Its response times outside the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and halfway up Vancouver Island are excellent. Beyond that, we could be looking at two days for it to get to the waters west of Haida Gwaii.

Our precious BC coast is the location of an increasing amount of large marine traffic. Tankers from Alaska and barges from Vancouver and Puget Sound regularly carry oil and other petroleum products between Alaska, BC, Washington and California. Our coast is on the great circle route from Japan, Korea, and China - source of all that container, bulk and vehicle shipping, and destination for all of our coal and other resource shipping. All these ships have huge fuel capacity, and most of them use ugly Bunker C when they are not in port areas (many switch to diesel when inshore).

Canada needs to have its own rescue tug, at least one, based somewhere mid-coast. The whining about who will pay for it - and it should be the shipping industry - will stop dead the day a tanker or another vessel fails, thousands or hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil are released, and crew lose their lives.

Felleman makes reference to the density of shipping traffic in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. The combined ports of Metro Vancouver rival Puget Sound and California for shipping activity. VIRTUALLY ALL OF THAT TRAFFIC SAILS THROUGH HARO STRAIT AND BOUNDARY PASSAGE. Home to hundreds of thousands of British Columbia and Washington residents, home to imperilled and poisoned Orcas and whale watchers, also the busiest recreational boating and fishing waters in BC, Haro Strait's days are numbered. The same odds that will fail us offshore one day, will deliver the same dirty payoff in Haro Strait, perhaps sooner.

How ready for that Haro Strait catastrophe are we? Well, actually we're in better shape there than elsewhere - close to emergency response facilities in Vancouver, Victoria, and Washington State, good bilateral sharing arrangements between BC/WA and Canada/USA. But the emergency response regime in place now is hardly up to the demands of today. Traffic is increasing, though global economic collapse and climate change may put temporary brakes to it.

In the aftermath of that dark and awful wintersnight, when disaster occurs, we're going to realize how far our emergency preparedness fell short of what was needed. Firm regulation is required - limiting size, speed, and frequency of vessels; raising the bar on vessel construction (more double hulls, redundant propulsion and steering); requiring escort tugs for a lot more vessels than is required today; simply banning others. Adequate readiness of rescue tugs.

The prospect of oil tankers and condensate tankers coming and going from Kitimat, on BC's north coast, while lucrative for the shareholders in the companies concerned, is madness for the coast. Even if there were rescue tugs nearby, by the time they get called to action and finally arrive, most often the damage is done.

The mighty tug protects state waters

While riveted to the CNN coverage of President Barack Obama's inauguration, I was stung by the irony of Exxon commercials at every break between promises of how things will be different under his leadership. I guess some changes won't come easily.

It is inspiring to think that our economic recovery could be directed toward critical environmental investments. Trade-dependent port communities throughout Washington are subject to the benefits and risks posed by maritime traffic.

But we can't limit environmental protections to flush times, as suggested by Port of Seattle's Charlie Sheldon in the Jan. 15 P-I, for we need to trade responsibly and there's no good time for a major oil spill. Containership traffic is down temporarily but cruise ships and risky bulk carriers are booming.

March 24 will be the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. While the environment and communities are still recovering, Exxon is the only U.S. oil company still sailing single-hulled tankers on the West Coast. Approximately 40 percent of all tankers calling on Washington are still singled-hulled. Three Valdez-sized spills lie within each tanker entering our waters. One came within just feet of grounding in San Francisco Bay recently.

More than 800 oil tankers and 3,000 oil barges entered state waters in 2006, feeding Washington's five refineries' annual thirst for 9 billion gallons of crude, roughly double their original capacity. While tanker companies have made substantial progress in spill prevention and response, far less equipment is in place to respond to ever-growing cargo and cruise ships that made 4,000 round trips through Strait of Juan de Fuca in 2006.

In 1999 the wood chip bulk carrier New Carissa spilled 70,000 gallons off Coos Bay, Ore. Its remains were finally removed from the coast this year at a cost exceeding $140 million. In 2007 the containership Cosco Busan spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel in San Francisco Bay, costing more than $90 million. With relatively small spills costing $2,000/gallon, the maritime and insurance industries should support spill prevention and response investments.

The response tug in Neah Bay fills the largest gap in our state's oil spill program, protecting the vast wealth of cultural and marine ecological resources found along the Olympic Coast where the state's largest spills have occurred. The tug has responded to 41 ships in need of assistance since 1999 with public funding that will run out next year.

In addition to towing, a properly equipped tug also could help fight fires, rescue people and is needed to improve coastal oil spill response and salvage capability. A contract with such a tug provider could help commercial vessels meet state and federal requirements concurrently.

Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell advocated for a permanent, industry-funded tug for years and saw to it that the Coast Guard finally issued its salvage and firefighting rule. While its lack of rigor was yet another Bush administration gift to the oil industry, it allows for state tug requirements.

HB1409, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, and SB5344, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Ranker, require commercial shippers, not taxpayers, to fund the tug.

Oil industry officials have said they are willing to pay their part, knowing that they could raise the price at the pump less than 1 cent to cover the de minimis costs. When Crowley Maritime built exceptional tugs for the oil industry in Prince William Sound, they used Seattle engineers, Anacortes shipyards and Ballard outfitters. Washington's tug also will be provisioned in Port Angeles and stationed at the Makah Marina.

In time, a Neah Bay tug provider would be able to finance the initial cost of a new multi-mission tug approaching the capabilities of Crowley's Washington-built "PRT's" -- backed by the long-term contracts regulations afford. It would better protect the environment and crew and employ the best tug makers in the world versus using the old tugs deployed to date.

Ex-Coast Guard lobbyists for cargo shippers continue to threaten ports and longshoremen with purported trade impacts despite the tug's minimal relative costs. If all ships of more than 300 gross tons entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca funded the tug equally per transit, it would cost cargo ships less than they pay in fees and taxes for some containers that fund dredging in other parts of the country.

Rather than fight over the tug, we should work together to alter the Harbor Maintenance Tax for border ports where it, not the tug, can affect the balance of trade with Canada.

Fred Felleman is the Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth. A hearing for SB5344 will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday before the Senate Environment, Water and Energy Committee.