Oil-spill remnants endanger sea life
Florida tugboat leaks diesel fuel into ocean after collision with marker near Bella Bella
CATHRYN ATKINSON
Special to The Globe and Mail

Stormy weather is driving worries that a major fuel-oil spill near Bella Bella, B.C., may contaminate the rich kelp, crab and clam beds on which the coastal community depends.
Heavy rain and 45-kilometre-an-hour winds were hampering estimates of how much diesel fuel had leaked after the spill from an American tugboat that ran aground early Monday near the tiny fishing community on British Columbia's central coast. The storm is expected to remain in the area until at least tomorrow.
It was originally feared the ship had lost up to 49,000 litres from a single crack in a forward fuel tank of the Sea Voyager, a 174-tonne steel tug owned by Florida-based Crowley Marine Corp.
The vessel hit a large, fixed navigational light at Serpent Point, 15 kilometres south of Bella Bella, about 1 a.m. on Monday. The light was operating at the time.
"We haven't yet determined the volume of the spill yet," said Stephen Wilson, Crowley's manager at the command centre set up at the Shearwater resort on Denny Island, 13 kilometres from Serpent Point.
"We're on the positive side of this apart from the weather," he added. "The vessel is secure, and we're on the salvage side of the project. We haven't been able to fly over today [Wednesday] because the pilots won't go up."
He added that teams were looking for evidence the oil had reached shore, but hadn't found any by midafternoon yesterday.
The Sea Voyager was en route through the Inside Passage to its home port of Valdez, Alaska, after routine maintenance at Crowley's marina in Seattle when it hit the navigational light, the only aid to shipping in the area.
The tug was floated off the rocks in high tide at 3:40 a.m. yesterday and was secured to a larger Crowley tug, the Hunter, which had been sent from Seattle to assist in the Sea Voyager's recovery. The remaining fuel was transferred to the larger vessel.
Three of the Sea Voyager's seven crew members had already returned to Seattle, Mr. Wilson said, because they had been due to be relieved. The other four were still on board the tug. They had been taken to the Hunter after the accident but returned to the Sea Voyager once it had been secured. All crew have been interviewed by Canadian investigators in Shearwater, he added.
Charlie Nalen, Crowley's vice-president of environment and safety at the company's Jacksonville, Fla., headquarters, said the tug's mate, not the captain, was at the helm at the time of the accident.
"We're still working with Coast Guard Canada as to why the vessel went off course and hit a marked rock," he said.
Mr. Nalen described the diesel spilled as a "very light oil that dissipates quickly."
Vancouver's Burrard Clean Operations was on site to assist in the cleanup, he added.
American firm Polaris Laboratories, a private company that monitors contaminated sites, will be part of continuing tests of the effects of the spilled fuel and were also on location.
"It is looking good," said a relieved Randy Carpenter of the Heiltsuk Nation fisheries program, the aboriginal group that runs traditional fishing, butter clam and cockle beds, and crab fisheries near the accident site.
"The guy [from Polaris] said it usually takes a month for the diesel to dissipate," he said.
Mr. Carpenter said the one concern for the Heiltsuk Nation was that members wanted more involvement in monitoring the ongoing effects of the spill and did not want to see samples from the water and shore taken to the United States. He said they had been tentatively approached by Crowley to participate in collecting samples.
"It's so they wouldn't have to fly up from Seattle every time," he said. "What they want to do now is probably good, but we don't really like it being sent to the United States to be tested. We're going to e-mail them on that."
Ian McAllister, one of the directors with the Raincoast Conservation Society, said the Bella Bella community had been musing as to "why a big, modern ocean-going tug hit the only aid to navigation in the area. Everybody's shaking their heads.
"It reaffirms our concern of the lifting of the oil and gas moratorium on the coast here."
Bella Bella is located in the middle of the Great Bear Rainforest, an 18,000-square-kilometre wilderness area three times the size of Prince Edward Island.
The B.C. government unveiled a plan in February of 2006 to protect the ecologically sensitive region, which is home to many at-risk species, including the genetically unique spirit bear, a member of the black bear family with white fur.