Exxon Valdez we've heard of, but what about Nestucca?

Down in the Bunkers, the Stacks, of the Vancouver Library Main Branch, there are bounded volumes consisting of four weekly editions of a magazine called  the "British Columbia Report".   Here at the BBC, we stumbled upon the BC Report purely by chance because it was part and parcel of a larger collection of newspaper clippings on some one called Andrew Rose.  If the name Rose is not familiar to you, then please check out CBC's Fifth Estate documentary on "Someone got away with Murder"... two murders that is, that happened on October 6, 1983, near Chetwynd, BC.   

Tracking down the original BC Report from the one clipping required a look on the Internet, so too a visit to the BC Legislative Library, because it sounded as though the BC report was a Public Affairs Bureau (PAB) production, but in fact the magazine was far, far removed from the GCPE aka PAB.  The Report was more of a "right-wing or Conservative" editorial stance or a private enterprise political Pit Bull.



The BC report was around when the BC Socred Party were going down in flames.  Bill Bennett had been at the helm; Bill Vander Zalm took over...but a hat lady called Faye came along with an offer that was pure Fantasy; and then Rita Johnston took over, without a parachute.


We found the VPL BC Record Stack volumes loaded with material that is still relevant today, like this one called "Slick Manoeuvres", authored by Quentin Dodd, who still contributes to the Tyee.

The BC Government does have it's own version of what happened when the Nestucca Barge Spilled oil, and with it the ensuing Clean-up, which was left to volunteers here on the Canadian side of the border.   It all started in the State of Washington when the tug that was pulling the Nestucca, lost it's tow line and then while two crew members were climbing on board the barge, the Tug punctured the hull in its forward starboard corner.

To the public at large, this sound like an environmental disaster on high seas, within our Coast waters, but our high flying Premier, Christy Clark and her PAB, considers that this man made disaster NOW belongs to the Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services!   Go figure!

How will the public be able to find any information on the Northern Gateway pipeline if we now have to look under the heading of Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services?

Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Service

Nestucca Barge Oil Spill

January 16, 2016  Update: Turns out the BC Liberal Government doesn't want to show one of their Five Conditions that pipeline companies have to adhere to IF they have an oil spill.  WayBack Machine to the Nestucca

Image retrieved from the WayBack Machine

Shoreline clean-up of oil from the Nestucca barge

Location

The collision occurred approximately 3 kilometres off the coast of Washington, near Gray’s Harbor. Oil came ashore in discontinuous patches mainly in Canada on Vancouver Island - from near Victoria in the southeast to near Cape Scott in the north.
Time and Date of Incident
December 23, 1988 in the early morning.
Product/Quantity Spilled ¹
An estimated 87,400 litres (5500 barrels) of Bunker C oil.

Incident Overview Reports:

Incident overviews provide information on significant spills of oil or hazardous material in British Columbia. These overviews are not situation reports, but summaries about the incident location, scale, cause, response actions, and environmental impacts.

• 2009
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• Earlier

New, 2016, URL for BC Spill Incidents
http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/spills-environmental-emergencies/spill-incidents

Also URL for all spills eg. Mount Polley too

  http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/spills-environmental-emergencies/spill-incidents

 Reports indicated that as many as 56,000 seabirds were killed.  And the clincher to the government's readiness, in protecting our shores environment, was this:

There was no attempt made at open water recovery by Canadian or U.S. authorities. High seas and currents precluded the use of containment booms. An inter-agency response to the incident helped to reduce the damage caused by the spill. An outcome of the Nestucca oil spill — and the Exxon Valdez spill that occurred 3 months afterwards — was the development of Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Teams. These teams assist in the process of assessing and recommending cleanup/treatment and/or constraints for each shoreline unit affected and also determine end-points for cleanup. The internationally used and proven Incident Command System (ICS) was adopted by the Ministry of Environment — and by 1995 for the province — as the incident management organization for spills and other emergencies.

On a side note, the Nestucca was included in a report involving the Federal Government's abandonment of Lighthouses throughout Canada .   Page 41 / 42 in this:

SEEING THE LIGHT: REPORT ON STAFFED LIGHTHOUSES IN ...

publications.gc.ca/collections/collection.../YC25-0-403-6-eng.pdf

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
first to report the Nestucca oil spill drifting toward western Vancouver Island in 1988; his early warning was said to ...... Quentin Dodd, as an individual. Friday ...

The tale of the Nestucca was further abused when the Federal Government of Canada hired someone to do a report and when the petroleum industry claimed that the recommendations were too harsh, $$$$, the Government of the day promptly buried it.

Vancouver 125 years old, brings back memories, captured in photos of old and new paintings today

The Vancouver Sun, H section, Saturday, April 16, 2011

One of the icons of Vancouver restaurant history, the Aristocratic stands open for business at the corner of Granville and Broadway (south west corner) on September 25, 1951.  The eatery, now only a memory, was among several Aristocratics around the city.

Art Jones Photo, from the Vancouver Public Library special collections No. 81669

I remember this intersection well, my family's home was two and half blocks away.  One thing that is not mentioned in the Vancouver Sun on page H1, is that on the North East corner of Broadway and Granville there was another Aristocratic, a drive-in, somewhat like the WhiteSpot.   Too bad we didn't have a Google Streetview back then.

At Fir (one block west of Granville) and Broadway was a baseball stadium (North East corner all the way to Eighth Avenue)(Vancouver Center Park).  This was the predecessor to Little Mountain's Nat Bailey Stadium.  Rumour has it that Nat Bailey sold his first hot dog at the stadium at Broadway and Fir.

Four doors to the south of the Aristocratic, shown in this morning's newspaper, was the Ingledew shoe store which had the latest technology to make sure that the shoe was the right fit for their customers, young and old.

From the photo below you can see that the X-Ray machine was a well thought out design, where the customer would be encouraged to lean against it so that he could see his own feet inside his yet to be purchased high-priced leather shoes.  The saleman, lucky fellow, had the golden opportunity to see the same results, day in, day out, without lifting a fingers to test the distance of the customer's toe to the shoe's toe.

For some strange reason, the X-Ray machine was removed, should have been outlawed.  Don't know whether it was the WAC Bennett Provincial government, the City of Vancouver Health Inspectors, or the shoe Industry at large that finally woke up to the fact of the harmful effects of X-Ray while seeing the results in REAL-TIME (fluoroscopy).

The radiation hazards associated with shoe fitting x-ray units were recognized as early as 1950. The machines were often out of adjustment and were constructed so radiation leaked into the surrounding area.

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The Vancouver Public Library has all sorts of photographs of our most livable city in the world, but here's another source, a local artist, Tom Carter.

Tom continues to capture new ideas from the photographs that he has collected over many years, by bringing them back to life in his paintings, especially under the weather conditions that we all so adore here.   Rainy, Saturday night where Theatre Row  is lit up with neon lights. 

The center painting below is the same Aristocratic's, at Broadway and Granville (South West corner), not sure if the photo to the left is inside the Aristocratic, but it looks just about right.

http://www.tomcartergallery.com/index.html

 Make sure your speakers are on.  Tom has captured not only the colour of Vancouver at night, but the sound as well.

"I love the urban environment - a fascinating cross section
of society where people in very different situations must
interact. Cities may also be where loneliness is felt more
acutely.
My art explores themes of isolation versus inclusion – how
we fit into the world and society. I tend to set my subjects
in other eras which, besides satisfying my historical interest,
reveals elements that are timeless – truths do not change.
Although there might be cold and turbulence in my work,
all of my settings have a sanctuary, a place of warmth and
respite. We, as the viewer, have the option of going inside
but we choose not to; we stand outside observing."
- Tom Carter

Tom's painting are hanging at the Baron Gallery in Gastown:
Intersections - paintings by Tom Carter

Wednesday to Saturday                          Noon till Six pm

Who else can remember this, the construction of the Granville Bridge?   One of the finishing touches was that the city of Vancouver had a merry-go-round, and a ferris wheel too, for the opening ceremonies, in the area where the south bound bridge traffic would exit onto Fir Street and Fourth Avenue.