Sunday, April 12, 2015

English Bay Spill measured in Litres why not Barrels? 2,700 vs 17 Kinder Morgan's Aframax capacity 750,000 barrels

The Canadian Coast Guard has pegged the English Bay spill at 2,700 litres and took three days and counting to remove what you see, not what you'll eat from the forthcoming fishing industry statistics produced by Ottawa after the next Federal election.

Report on the damage to the Environment by Minister Mary Polak, don't hold your breath.

Kinder Morgan's Aframax and sister crude oil carriers don't count their loads in litres ....... the number would be far too large .... (89,430,353.4 Litres).  Lloyd's call the shots on that and it helps public relation companies paid to promote Kinder Morgan's endeavors bottom line.  750,000 barrels carrying capacity is norm.

As to WHY a senior, second in command, Officer of the Canadian Coast Guard would use litres to explain a spill defies the logic of persons walking in the street or treading in the waters off English Bay.

By way of an explanation, in 1982  Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre, being faced with the price of gas going over a dollar at the pump, and the gas companies pump's rolling numbers only went up to 99 Cents, decided that it was easier, and better able to collect more taxes at that their pump, was to simply convert 99 cents per gallon to 24.42 cents per litre in Metro Vancouver, 28 cent per litre Sicamous.

The gas stations cost to convert?  Applied a Post-It-Note atop of 'GAL'.  Within two years a new electronic version pump was in place right down to eight numbers past the decimal point.

When Minister James Moore was standing at the podium, beating his chest, cheating the local politicians on grandstanding on how efficient the CCG was in handling the spill, he wasn't looking at the metric version of the numbers .....   2,700 litres spotted from aircraft  ....  he chose to look at it as a piddly 17 barrels.


How many litres in a barrel:   158.987295

How many barrels of Bunker Oil was spilled in English Bay:  17

We'll see, hopefully never:

How many barrels of Crude Oil does an Aframax carry:  750,000
(89,430,353.4 Litres)

How many barrels of Crude Oil did the Torrey Canyon carry: 120,000
SS Torrey Canyon
On 28 March 1967, the Fleet Air Arm sent Blackburn Buccaneer planes from RNAS Lossiemouth to drop forty-two 1,000-lb bombs on the ship. Then, the Royal Air Force sent Hawker Hunter jets from RAF Chivenor to drop cans of aviation fuel to make the oil blaze. However, exceptionally high tides put the fire out and it took further bombing runs by Sea Vixens from the RNAS Yeovilton and Buccaneers from the Royal Navy Air Station Brawdy, as well as more RAF Hunters with liquified petroleum jelly to ignite the oil. Attempts to use foam booms to contain the oil slick were ineffectual because of the high sea state. Bombing continued into the next day before Torrey Canyon finally sank.


Some of the oil from the ship was dumped in a quarry on the Chouet headland on Guernsey in the Channel Islands, where it remains to this day. Efforts to rid the island of the oil have continue with limited success.

Designated dumping area for the South coast: Texada Island

Designated dumping area for Douglas Channel: on a 'missing' island in 1,000 square kilometres

However, in this day and age of pristine islands being contaminated, and the technology and zeal to make things right, there is, by way of one recent example the raising, not razing, the Costa Concordia for a mere 750 million Euros.

Living Ocean Report 133 pages
As an Emergency Response training session to a Marine Disaster their capabilities should be started now to recover the Queen of the North.  Oh wait, isn't that mission underway by an American salvage company  to clear the channels for the Aframax entering Douglas Channel via the Inside Passage?


3 comments:

John's Aghast said...

Would those be metric barrels or Imperial barrels?
I came up with 594.7 gallons, which I suppose you could round of to 600 gallons, given the method of measuring it.
Which begs the question, How did they measure it?
If it was pumped out perhaps there was a meter on the pump? If it just ran out...?
And given that it was "80% cleaned up" yesterday, means that there are 'only' 118.9 gallons (okay, round off to 120 gallons) remaining in the deep dark ocean, and on the beach. Not so much, compared to the Exxon Valdez.

North Van's Grumps said...

42 US gallons = one Barrel (of oil)
One Barrel = 159 Litres

The determination of how much was pumped out may be as simple as: EVERYTHING, to the last drop, that was in the holding TANK for the Bilge.
*****************
The 80% number, or the difference, the 20% now down to 4%, only covers what's visible to the naked eye from an aircraft, on the surface. Therefore 96% of their job is done.

Except:

The Feds and CCG are now moving their field resources to the oil soiled shores that are still covered in the bunker oil. Whether it's the same volume??? as the first 100% or more, is not clear. Moore probably works along the line of thinking that the naked eye sees more sea than the line between high and low tides.

Another 2,700 litres wrapped around objects that are not one surfaced????

John's Aghast said...

Then 1 BBl Oil becomes 33.6 Imperial gallons?
Are you saying that the source WAS the holding tank? Or it MIGHT be?
Its pretty difficult (I think) to get a definitive quantity from the air, as it is to determine that 80% had been 'cleaned up'.

The important issue here is that it not be allowed to drift off into the unconscious as has Mount Polley.