Province Working on Hazardous Goods Spill Plan
Prince George, B.C- Although the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project has not yet been approved, the Province has announced it is working towards what it calls a world class spill preparedness and response policy.
Environment Minister Terry Lake says British Columbians need to know that in the event of a spill, the response will be immediate and that the environment will be returned to its original state. He says the announcement today is not meant to ease concerns about the Northern Gateway project “This isn’t about pushing any pipeline through, this is about the movement of dangerous goods through the province”.
Lake says he knows there are some gaps in spills response whether it be pipelines, truck or rail transportation and that those gaps include the response time, “especially in a province which presents many topographical challenges.”
Beginning in January, Lake and Energy and Mines Minister Rich Coleman will hold face-to-face meetings with industry leaders in the oil, gas, chemical and transport sectors to discuss key elements outlined in Land Based Spill Preparedness and Response in British Columbia: Policy Intentions Paper for Consultation.
Points of discussion will include: minimum response times, equipment and trained personnel requirements, wildlife response, temporary and final waste management, clean-up expectations, and impact assessment, among others.
This phase of consultation ends Feb. 15, 2013 and will help set the stage for a land-based spill prevention and response symposium in late March in Vancouver.
The plan is to have any clean up deal with on a “polluter pay principle” which Brenda Kenney, president and CEO, Canadian Energy Pipelines Association supports “If there ever is an incident, we will make it right and the regulations in place will make sure that we do.”
While working on an improved land-based spill regime, Lake says the Province continues to press the federal government for a stronger role in the work they are undertaking on a world-leading marine-based spill response model.
The B.C. government will take part in the Joint Review Panel hearings in Prince Rupert on the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline (NGP), beginning Dec. 10. That round of hearings will examine maritime-spill prevention, response and mitigation, and environmental effects associated with the proposed marine terminal.
Lake says he expects it would be a full year after the March symposium before there is a new spill regime in place.
Comments
How has the cleanup of the Queen of the North been going….nothing but more liberal smoke and mirrors in this story folks.
They cannot keep conservation officers in the bush…and they’re going to keep a clean up response team on hand…..BS pure and simple.
Here we are months before an election and libs want a spill program in place??? think Mr Harper has sent a message the Pipeline will proceed in the best interests of Canada, screw BC he got the power and makes no bones about it.
I like the part about “Wildlife Response”, didn’t know they were trained LOL.
Anything can be made to work better and every one in the province will benefit by faster response to any spill.
I appreciate the work they’re doing on it.
You know, I would have felt much better if they had said they were reviewing the existing response policy and procedures and updating where necessary.
Do we have something in place and when was it last reviewed? There should have been something reasonable in place for at least 5 or 6 decades, and longer in more populated areas. This goes not only to the current BCLiberals, but also the BC NDP, and Social Credit governments of the past.
Where can we review the existing policy and capacity? Government has to learn to provide such information with their media releases. Without it the media releases are totally useless in this day of the internet.
They know where the information is. We pay enough taxes so that we should not also have to spend our valuable time seeking such information!!! :-(
I appreciate the work they’re doing on it.
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I certainly is a a great plan but they havent started yet and how for will it go?
Cheers
Environment Minister Terry Lake says British Columbians need to know that in the event of a spill, the response will be immediate and that the environment will be returned to its original state.
Hog Wash!
Please note the clear stupidity of the above statement from Terry Lake. Only an Enviroment Minister could say something that stupid.
so we have an earthquake off of Haida and everyone screams that there is no emergency plan properly in place. Now the government makes plans to put an emergency in place for another potential problem and its vote buying… ai yi yi…
Jim13135, be careful if you’re going to mention the Queen of the North and liberal smoke and mirrors. Remember, the Queen is sitting at the bottom as a direct result of a couple of highly trained unionized provincial government employees who were too busy “playing” with each to notice that the vessel was heading towards a freaking big island!
I fail to see how any efforts to develop or improve a Hazardous Goods Spill Plan is a bad thing. If the government does nothing, there will be criticism. If the government does something, there will also be criticism. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t!
I appreciate and agree with Slim229’s comment: “Anything can be made to work better and every one in the province will benefit by faster response to any spill. I appreciate the work they’re doing on it.”
So what does unionized have to do with it ?
World leading marine based response model are the words I read.
If your government cannot fund enough game wardens to protect our wildlife resources…how do they do it?
If they cannot fund hospitals so PG residents don’t have to drive to Quesnel or Vanderhoof for medical treatment…how do they do it?
If they cut back wildlife studies so that they have no idea what our current wildlife populations are….how do they fund a world class marine spill response model??
Do they keep a highly trained crew and equipment on standby, with net zero budget increases? Do they cross train BC firefighters and ambulance drivers? Maybe they plan on raising corporate taxes and entering trilateral funding agreements with Ottawa?
The point is, if they cannot manage the basics do you seriously think anything more than a multimillion dollar feel good document will ever be produced.
Not sure why Northern Gateway was mentioned in this article – provincial regs have nothing to do with a federally regulated pipeline. ???
People that can’t see the flurry of vote buying going on in this province using taxpayers dollars are absolutely blind.
” Posted by: seamutt on November 28 2012 6:18 PM
So what does unionized have to do with it ?”
Just another disgruntled burger flipper attacking highly trained govt employees seamutt.
Jim13135, They do it by increasing child poverty and decreasing healthcare and infrastructure funding.
:-). Burger flippers are working people too.
Terry Lake. Lover of the HST. He along with Rich Coleman should have left along with, Campbell, Falcon, Hanson, and the rest of the ship jumpers.
Brenda Kenny was on the CBC today also stating that BC needs to have proper spill liability funds in place….
Basically inferred that any spill is a provincial liability… fits with the Enbridge corporate subsidiary Northern Gateway Pipelines Inc solution to limit their own liability for any spill.
Northern Gateway has already been criticized for not having the resources nor the insurance to cover a major spill… so their business model is only viable if BC picks up the cost of insuring the liability as a corporate subsidy to the Chinese state owned corporations that will own the equity in Northern Gateway.
The question I have is where does BC get $20 billion from for a ‘liability fund’ and if so how many years would it take for BC to recover this cost from any revenues they have coming to them… 999-years, maybe 2012 years…. Its treasonous for the BC liberals to sell BC out to this liability IMO.
Lake said **This is about the movement of Dangerous Goods through the Province**
Emergency Management in B.C. states in part.
**If there is an emergency, police, fire or ambulance, along with local and regional responders, are usually first at site. Most incidents are contained at the site level.
Municipalities and regional districts will activate their emergency plan and set up a local emergency operations centres to support responders if the situation escalates and the respopnse requirements become more complex.
Day to day,the provincial government is available to respond to calls through an emergency co-ordination centre that is staffed 24/7.
The Provincial emergency management structure is activated when a BC community or any significant infrastructure is threatened by an emergency or disaster which may overwhelm a local authoritys ability to respond. There will be an increase in the activation level of Provincial Regional ’emergency Operations Centres and the Provicial Emergency Coordination Centre to support local governments emergency operations as required**
So there you have it. All you need to know about emergency response in BC.
Further information can be obtained by putting BC Emergenchy Response Management System (BCERMS) in your search engine.
How is that any different from American oil companies, eagleone? Take away American oil interests in Canada and you and everyone else can`t fill their tank. Racist.
Its a huge difference Gamblor.
#1 Our economy is closely tied to the American economy as well as national security. We are both first world economies with similar standards in democracy, labor, and the environment.
Having pipelines that service our economy is a risk that is insured by our economy for the benefit of affordable energy that gives our economy an energy advantage thereby enabling us to compete on the global markets.
Insuring energy risks for a competing economy that will use the risk subsidy to undermine our economy is entirely different.
#2 All the energy companies operating in North America are public companies, or private companies, but none are state owned entities subsidized by national governments as arms of national policy that entangles politics with business and title to resources. We won’t go to war with the Americans if a provincial government sets out rules that hinder an American corporations profits, but the same can not be said about a state owned corporation from China.
It has nothing to do with race or silly nationalistic arguments like that. It is about the reality of a competing economy using state owned entities to plunder our energy advantage and leave our economy with all the risk far out of proportion to the gains.
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