{"id":17008,"date":"2016-08-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-hakamagwp.pantheonsite.io\/news\/plan-ship-oil-through-graveyard-pacific"},"modified":"2017-10-27T21:28:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T21:28:18","slug":"plan-ship-oil-through-graveyard-pacific","status":"publish","type":"custom_news","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/news\/plan-ship-oil-through-graveyard-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"The Plan to Ship Oil Through the \u201cGraveyard of the Pacific\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proposal to build the United States\u2019 largest oil-by-rail terminal in Vancouver, Washington, could transform the Columbia River into a major conduit for fossil fuel. The facility would accept trainloads of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota, and transfer it to ships bound for West Coast refineries. In the process, it would more than double the number of oil tankers and barges traveling through the Columbia River and into the ocean across the Columbia River Bar, a treacherous patch of sea known to sailors as the Graveyard of the Pacific<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the past five weeks, Washington state authorities have listened to arguments for and against Vancouver Energy\u2019s proposed terminal at a series of hearings, which concluded last week. The public debate has centered on the dangers of oil trains\u2014a threat highlighted by the fiery derailment of 16 cars in the Columbia River Gorge earlier this summer<\/a>. But the potential risks of shipping have attracted less attention, says Dan Serres, the conservation director at Columbia Riverkeeper, one of the environmental organizations fighting to block the terminal.<\/p>\n

If the new facility is built, it\u2019s estimated that one oil tanker would visit the terminal every day, traveling more than 170 kilometers upriver to Vancouver. The vessel would also have to navigate one of the most dangerous bar crossings in the world, where the swift current of the Columbia collides with the Pacific. The chaos creates the shifting maelstrom of shoals, currents, and towering breakers known as the Columbia River Bar. <\/p>\n

<\/a>

In the US Pacific Northwest, the dangers of shipping oil by rail are top of mind following the derailment of a tanker train in Mosier, Oregon, earlier this summer. Photo by US Coast Guard Photo\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Since 1792, the bar has claimed at least 2,000 ships, and the United States Coast Guard regularly closes it to traffic due to hazardous conditions. \u201cPutting those two things together\u2014a dangerous bar and dramatically increased shipments of oil\u2014should give everyone pause,\u201d Serres says.<\/p>\n

A spill from a vessel could release up to 30 million liters (nearly 200,000 barrels) of oil, according to the project\u2019s draft environmental impact statement. If an accident happened on the bar, the turbulent water could make recovering oil challenging, and would pose a risk to coastal beaches, experts say. If a spill happened in the river, it could also threaten the Columbia River estuary, home to a rich ecosystem of birds, pinnipeds like sea lions and seals, and salmon.<\/p>\n

A report commissioned by the Washington Attorney General\u2019s Counsel for the Environment, which represented the public\u2019s interest in the hearings, found that such a disaster could cause between US $170-million and $1.16-billion in damages, and would require decades of recovery.<\/p>\n

Throughout the hearings, the backers of the project\u2014a joint venture by Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies\u2014have said they can operate the terminal safely. \u201cOur interests are completely aligned with making sure that the delivery to and from the project is safe and done in an environmentally responsible way,\u201d says Jared Larrabee, general manager of the project.<\/p>\n

At the terminal, these efforts would include deploying oil booms before filling vessels to catch any oil spilled during loading, and installing safety shutoff valves on hoses. Larrabee says Vancouver Energy would also demand that oil tankers\u2014operated by the terminal\u2019s customers\u2014follow procedures, such as using tugboat escorts, as well as the services of specialized river and bar pilots, who would come aboard to help vessels safely navigate the shipping channels and crossing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s thanks largely to the skills of these experienced pilots that the river is as safe as it is today, says Laura Springer, the waterways management branch chief for the coast guard in Portland. After all, the Columbia is no stranger to vessel traffic. About 1,500 ships ply its waters every year, including roughly 300 tankers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually have a really good record of safety,\u201d Springer says. The last major spill occurred in 1984, just downstream of Vancouver, when a steering failure caused a Mobiloil tanker to run aground, releasing nearly 750,000 liters (4,700 barrels) of heavy fuel oil. (Experts say tug escorts can help prevent accidents like this.)<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The mouth of the Columbia River\u2014the Graveyard of the Pacific\u2014is adorned by the wreck of the Peter Iredale. <\/em>Photo by Chad Ehlers\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Based on historical shipping data, the draft environmental impact statement (compiled by the siting council and outside consultants) concludes that a small spill from a ship grounding or collision could happen about once every 20 years. A vessel traffic risk assessment commissioned by Vancouver Energy, which considers the effect of added congestion, found that a small tanker would be involved in a spill about once every 40 years and a large tanker about once every 3,000 years. (Washington\u2019s Department of Ecology recently began an independent evaluation, but the preliminary results won\u2019t be released until late 2017.)<\/p>\n

However, the risk of a spill isn\u2019t just about probability, says Kristin Boyles, the Earthjustice attorney representing Columbia Riverkeeper and other environmental groups\u2014it\u2019s also about consequences: and the consequences could be disastrous, according to some of the scientists who testified at the hearings.<\/p>\n

James Holmes, an environmental scientist who helped compile the report for Washington\u2019s Counsel for the Environment, found that a worst-case scenario spill could affect up to 130,000 adult salmon, 1.6 million juveniles, and 65,000 waterfowl. It could also contaminate more than 400 square kilometers of habitat, including wildlife refuges and wetlands that have been restored in recent years to boost salmon populations. The impact on tribal fisheries and culture would be devastating, says Sarah Thompson of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.<\/p>\n

Business groups and the Port of Vancouver have voiced support for the terminal, and a 2015 survey of Clark County residents found that two-thirds approved of the project. However, many have also come out against it, including the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Vancouver city council\u2014which recently passed a resolution to ban all future oil terminals\u2014and citizens who submitted nearly a quarter million comments in response to the draft environmental impact statement, citing the danger posed to the river and to the climate.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Washington\u2019s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, joined the opposition. \u201cThe bottom line is that the potential benefits of this project are dramatically outweighed by the potential risks and costs of a spill,\u201d he said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the hearings over, the state\u2019s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council will now pore over the reams of submitted testimony and make a recommendation to Washington\u2019s governor, Jay Inslee, who has final say over the terminal\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

The decision will determine whether the Graveyard of the Pacific becomes the Gateway to the Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The largest oil-by-rail terminal in the US would double oil shipments through the Columbia River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12724,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":null,"hero_video_caption":"","deck":"The largest oil-by-rail terminal in the US would double oil shipments through the Columbia River.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15599]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"","podbean2":"","redirect":"","geolocation":{"address":"45.612027, -122.6586","lat":45.612027,"lng":-122.6586},"related":[16164,16181],"twitterimage":13718,"facebookimage":13717,"twitterdescription":"","edited":"","factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17008"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20032,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17008\/revisions\/20032"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16181"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}