Dear Minister Raitt,
We are and represent a large community of residents and businesses in Cowichan Bay, on Vancouver Island, B.C.
We have attached a letter in response to a letter by Captain Stephen Brown, recently published in our west coast ‘Pacific Yachting’ magazine, (also attached).
We are very concerned about the presence of the regular parking of large commercial ships at anchorages in Cowichan Bay. These anchorages have been here since 1970 but have been almost unused until 2010. The number of ships here have been increasing steadily and during 2014 we had 58 ships here. We understand that these anchorages are popular for their various attributes and that it is difficult to place them elsewhere.
These ships present an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic fuel spill in the estuary, inlets and foreshore habitat in this mostly enclosed body of water. In light of the recent oil spill in Vancouver, the contamination from bunker fuel in these areas could do irreparable damage to all marine life and foreshore birdlife especially in the estuary sanctuary. The Cowichan River and Finlayson Arm at either end the end of the bay and Satellite Channel are on the top ten most important salmon rivers in North America.
Local work is taking place on improving healthy shellfish life and harvesting possibilities are increasing after years of previous industrial contamination.
Anchor chain drag from these massive 300 meter ships, tear up the ocean floor.
An anchor loss would almost surely result in a grounding, due to the extremely close proximity to shore and with no Canadian emergency response vessels with the ability to prevent this from happening anywhere on Canada’s west coast.
These ships cause, massive disruptive, social impacts of smoke, noise, and lights; The community has grown 1800% since these anchorages were charted in 1970 and the ships have also grown exponentially in overall size. They arrive at all times of the day and night and drop anchor, reverberating against the high terrain surrounding the bay and run their noisy generators 24/7 causing residents to have sleepless nights.
The Cowichan Valley also has dangerous levels of pollution during the colder months, causing serious respiratory conditions. This is also when vessels park in Cowichan Bay, they incessantly emit highly toxic smoke from their bunker fuel driven generators .
We would very much appreciate a response as to your thoughts and possible solutions to our concerns. We have met with the authorities responsible for ship traffic in our area including, Capt. Stephen Brown, Kevin Obermeyer, CEO P.P.A. and Kelly Larkin of T.C. They have made some efforts in our regard by recently reducing and repositioning some of the anchorages in the bay, as well as working on new anchorages in the gulf islands.
We understand that there are supply chain issues and that there are plans in the works, to expedite loading of these ships to help relieve these conditions somewhat. This we hear, is in the future but we need a sense of urgency for the high risk potential for devastation of this small Cowichan Bay community. There must be a solution as according to projections, shipping on the west coast is going to increase in numbers.
There are three Cowichan Tribes that adjoin the bay that also have great concerns and support our work.
With our thanks appreciation for your attention in this matter,
CBSWS.