48 <strong>Commercial</strong> <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Shipping</strong> <strong>Accidents</strong>: <strong>Understanding</strong> the <strong>Risks</strong> in <strong>Canada</strong> Box 4.2 Factors That Influence Impacts: The Explosion and Fire of PETROLAB On July 19, 1997, the crew of a 41m tanker named PETROLAB was washing the ship’s cargo oil tanks in preparation for a loading of stove oil while alongside Newfoundland’s St. Barbe wharf. At about 7:30 p.m., an explosion of accumulated petroleum vapours occurred below deck, resulting in two deaths. Two other crew members were seriously injured. This accident was made worse by the subsequent fire and is illustrative of how the degree of impact can be influenced by factors that arise after the accident itself. According to the TSB (2013), “[t]he ensuing fire was limited to the ship’s stores burning in the ‘tween-deck until, some two to three hours after the explosion, the paint on the outer hull began to burn and spread fire to the creosote impregnated dock pilings.” The fire would continue to burn for another 60 hours, during which time part of the town of St. Barbe was evacuated out of concern that the fire might spread from the wharf to the adjacent tank farm. In the end, in addition to the onboard deaths and injuries, the entire wharf, ferry ramp, and pipelines were destroyed. In their investigation report, the Transport Safety Board found that, while the wharf served both oil tankers and passenger vessels, the local volunteer fire department had neither shipboard firefighting training nor the necessary foam to fight petroleum fires. Despite these inadequacies they were being relied upon for emergencies by the terminal operator, Ultramar, as set out in their own contingency plan. Thus, when several local volunteer fire departments responded, they were reluctant to fight the fire with water. As for onboard firefighting equipment, although in compliance with regulatory requirements, much of it was left inoperable after the explosion disabled the ship’s service generator. Thus, for two to three hours, no effort was made to fight the fire while it was contained below deck. It took the arrival of the Canadian Coast Guard in the morning of July 20 th before a major firefighting effort began, at which point the dock was ablaze and the mooring lines had burned through, casting the ship adrift before it grounded across the harbour. The impacts could have been greater. A passenger ferry had been sharing the wharf for 90 to 135 minutes on the day of the explosion, with passengers embarking and disembarking, all while PETROLAB was conducting hazardous operations and with minimal precautions to separate such activities from ferry passengers. (TSB, 2013) Box 4.2 discusses a particular accident that occurred at a wharf in St. Barbe, in northwest Newfoundland, in 1997. The impact of the accident was worsened by an inadequate contingency plan set out by the terminal operator, insufficient training and resources for local firefighters, damage of onboard firefighting equipment during the accident, and a delayed response. Some of the regulations and voluntary initiatives described in Chapter 2 have led to improvements since this time. 4.4 CONCLUSION The potential environmental impacts of a spill are heavily dependent on the nature and volume of the cargo, the local physical and social environment, the time of year, the location, and the response capacity. <strong>Marine</strong> spills can create significant challenges for respondents due to both the volume of cargo being moved by ships today and the challenges of conducting clean-up operations. Oil dominates the marine pollution landscape in <strong>Canada</strong> in many ways: it is the most common type of pollution spilled in Canadian waters; it is the substance for which environmental impacts — and the resulting social, cultural, health, and economic impacts — have been most heavily documented and studied; and the potential impacts of an oil spill are great. Most impacts have been reported as the consequence of large spills, although smaller spills occurring much more frequently may be associated with cumulative chronic impacts. There are gaps in understanding the behaviour and impacts of oil spills in cold and freshwater environments. In addition, little is known about other potentially dangerous cargo types such as HNS. Other types of impacts (socio-economic and health) have been subject to less analysis, and these are more likely to depend on the activities that are important to the region’s economy or survival (e.g., commercial fishing in Atlantic <strong>Canada</strong> and subsistence fishing in the North). Overall, there are many knowledge gaps surrounding the potential impacts of spills resulting from marine shipping accidents.
Chapter 5 Conclusions 49 5 Conclusions
Change language