by
Shannon Maneo
Special to the Globe and Mail
March 15, 2007
VICTORIA -- Salvagers cleaning up a massive log spill on remote Nootka Island have been ordered to get their heavy vehicles out of delicate tidal pools because they are damaging the marine habitat.
Officials with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued that order late last week.
Rob Russell, acting senior habitat biologist with the federal fisheries department, said the company overseeing the salvage operation, B.C. Log Spill Recovery Co-operative Association, must hire an environmental consultant to provide advice so that there is no further damage.
The Vancouver-based
company was first told to hire a consultant in late February.
"It is a serious situation," Mr. Russell said from his Nanaimo
office.
B.C. Log Spill was also advised in February to keep its equipment away from the shale formations where plants and animals live in the tidal pools.
Last Friday, when fisheries officers visited the site, they took photos and video footage of the out-of-bounds work that was happening on the rocks despite last month's advice.
B.C. Log Spill's general manager, Dave Trytko, admits that the equipment traversed a 35-metre area of shale rock with seaweed on it, but added that "fish don't live on rock," although some shellfish may have been affected by the cleanup work.
Mr. Trytko said the loader, excavator and rubber-tired skidder operating on Nootka Island will now go around the rocks in order to remove the logs and then bring them down to the water's edge where they will be placed on a barge.
The company will also confine its work to the sandy areas below the high-tide line, said Mr. Trytko, who went on to add that he is currently attempting to hire a consultant.
Bruce Adkins, of the oceans habitat branch at Fisheries and Oceans in Nanaimo, said that inter-tidal organisms -- barnacles, mussels, rockweed -- were damaged or destroyed when the heavy vehicles moved logs off the rocks and shale.
Rockweed, and other seaweeds, are important habitats because juvenile fish are reared among the plants.
A meeting scheduled for today between fisheries officials and Mr. Trytko was delayed.
Mr. Adkins said he didn't know when it would occur, but that the department will continue to monitor the situation.
A "stop work" order is more expedient than a fine, which would require a charge and then a conviction, while a lot of damage can be done in the meantime.
The logs drifted to Nootka Island after a barge carrying $1.2-million worth of Western Forest Products hemlock sawlogs lost its cargo on Jan. 8 in three-metre seas about 12 kilometres southwest of the island.
About half of the logs (an estimated 8,000) are strewn along eight kilometres of shore on the west coast of Nootka Island, which is about 100 kilometres north of Tofino.
The logs are four times the usual amount of beached wood. If they are left on the beach, Mr. Trytko predicts a public outcry because they block access to the water.
"Imagine 500 truckloads of logs laying on the beach," he said.
Mr. Trytko, who has 25 years of experience in the logging industry, pegs the value of the lost logs at about half a million dollars.
The salvage operation, which is being financed by the insurance company for the firm that lost the logs, will cost about the same.
Also, if some of the wood gets washed back out to sea, it becomes a navigation hazard because hemlock floats low in the water.
Environmental activist Vicky Husband applauds Fisheries and Oceans' action.
The inter-tidal region is home to dozens of fragile creatures and Ms. Husband is particularly concerned that the salvage operation could harm sea otters, an endangered species.
Nootka Island also attracts thousands of domestic and international visitors. Many of them hike the famed Nootka Trail.
"I have travelled much of the world," said Ms. Husband, who has received both the Order of Canada and the Order of B.C. for her environmental work.
"I can say it's of international significance."
The province has placed portions of Nootka Island under a special management zone to protect its recreational features.
The salvage work, which began on March 4, has been delayed by stormy weather and is only about 10 per cent complete.
Mr. Trytko said that he had hoped it would take two to three weeks.
The logs will be barged farther north to Port Alice to be milled into pulp.
Fisheries officers
will continue to monitor the work by air and with further visits.
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