Bunker Fuel Kills Herring

Back in October, I wrote about the environmental impact assessment process for the Gateway Pacific Project. 

I was in a bad mood.   

Because I was in a bad mood, I indulged myself with a longish blog. 

Although statistics prove that our readership is directly correlated with the length of the blog (short = more), the cleverness of the title (boring = fewer), and the interest level of the picture up top (Wile E.Coyote rules!), I wrote a long blog with a boring title and a dull picture. Unsurprisingly, it went quite widely unread.

But right now, I’m feeling like a prophet.

Down at the bottom, where it’s probably safe to assume that few readers dared tread, I went on a rant about bunker fuel.   I quoted a ten-year old article about bunker fuel (BORING!), which said:

Although only oil tankers can cause very large spills, many bulk carriers and container ships carry bunker fuel of 10,000 tonnes or more – these are larger quantities than many of the world's tankers carry as cargo.

Most importantly, ships' bunkers normally consist of heavy fuel oils, which in general are highly viscous and persistent. A relatively small quantity of highly persistent bunker fuel can be disproportionately damaging and costly to remove in comparison, for example, with a substantial cargo of light crude oil.

“Bunker Spill Risk,” 2001.

The Gateway Pacific project will bring Cherry Point 487 bulk carriers at buildout, including some of the biggest in the world. 

Carrying bunker fuel.

To a pier located in herring habitat.  (Read more about herring here, in Bob Simmons’ article in Crosscut.)  

So what’s new? 

In an article that was just published by the National Academies of Science, researchers examined the effects of a relatively small spill of bunker fuel in San Francisco Bay.  What did they find? 

That oil is far more toxic to herring than we had believed.

“The effect of bunker oil on Pacific herring was so profound and unexpected that it now redefines our understanding of the sensitivity of fish embryos to oil—even in an environment where there's a lot of preexisting background pollution.” (That’s from coverage in Mother Jones, which includes a video showing the spread of the spill.) 

Our own Bellingham Herald published an article that quoted one of the coauthors of the herring study:

"Bunker fuel is used worldwide and is spilled relatively often," Cherr said. "It is important to look at small spills in sensitive areas."

So what?

In my experience, environmental impact statements tend to view the risk of accidents as an impact that cannot be mitigated. In other words, if there's a risk, you live with it. 

With 487 bulk carriers per year, we need to know the risk.  Even more important, we need to understand the consequences of a bunker fuel spill.

And so, the EIS needs to tell us, very clearly and without shirking:  if there is a bunker fuel spill, what will happen to the Cherry Point aquatic reserve? 

Herring for coal.  If there's a trade to be made, we must at least make it mindfully.