Weather complicates spill response

At 1:23 a.m. on March 23, amid gale force winds, the M/V Gordon C. Leitch crashed into a dock at Havre Saint-Pierre, Quebec—tearing a half-metre gash in its hull and leaking 50 tonnes of bunker crude into the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence north of Anticosti Island.

Spectacular natural monuments carved from limestone bedrock give an otherworldly look to Grande Île -- one of more than 40 islands in Quebec's Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve.

The spill took place in the heart of Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve—an environmentally sensitive ecosystem whose unique undersea topography, currents and saltwater/freshwater mix foster an abundance of life and provide food for seabirds, whales, dolphins and seals. With some 40 islands and more than 2,000 islets and reefs, the threat of extensive shoreline contamination in the area was a serious one.

Despite the urgency of the situation, the arrival of emergency help was delayed by freezing rain, and efforts to contain the spill using oil booms were thwarted by waves up to two metres high. First reports sent to Environment Canada scientists by the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute in Mont-Joli indicated that the oil was moving west along the coast. Soon it had polluted about 10 kilometres of shoreline.

Helicopters arrived to track the spill from the air, while emergency response teams used snowmobiles to assess the amount of contaminated snow along the shore. With spring break-up mere days away, remediation would have to take place immediately, or environmental damage could be catastrophic. On March 24, 50 people began cleaning up the area, but the magnitude of the effort required and lack of time meant the number of people on the job soon had to be doubled. At the height of the emergency— and in trying weather conditions—140 people were working on-site.

Meanwhile, another 110 people were involved in managing the emergency. They included teams of Environment Canada experts who monitored and tracked the spill using specialized scientific and technical resources. The Department's own SCAT (Shoreline Clean-up and Assessment Technique) was used to determine the type and contamination of each site and propose appropriate methods of restoration. Map overlays were produced using its GENIE (Georeference Environmental Network for Information Exchange) software, which identified key environmental features, established priorities for clean-up, and created daily maps of progress.

Two days after the spill, the strong winds changed direction—causing blocks of ice to begin moving offshore and into the centre of the archipelago, toward Île Fantôme. Fisheries and Oceans Canada's ice movement models were vital in directing clean-up teams to priority areas in the days to come. Eventually, more than 150 kilometres were contaminated along the shore of the St. Lawrence and around some 15 islands.

Although noise-making buoys were used to discourage eider ducks, black guillemots, sea eagles and other birds from landing in polluted areas, the oil took a heavy toll. Biologists from Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service set up a centre for cleaning oil-soaked birds, but only 66 of the 1077 picked up during clean-up were saved, and nine others were sent to the Montréal Biodôme. The effects of the spill on nesting populations of these seabirds will be studied later this year as a follow-up. The spill also caused the temporary closure of some shellfish harvesting areas in the region.

Despite the difficulties of responding under difficult weather conditions and the complications created by the spring break-up, 80 per cent of the oil was cleaned up within a month of the spill occurring. The effectiveness of the Department's technical and scientific tools and close cooperation among all the teams involved prevented this environmental disaster from wreaking even greater havoc in this ecologically sensitive region of the country.

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