The costs of the oil spill in English Bay will likely be borne by the ship Marathassa, a bulk grain carrier from Korea that was on its maiden voyage.

Canadian Coast Guard and Transport Canada officials confirmed Thursday the ship was the source of the spill, which fouled the waters around English Bay with 2,700 litres of bunker fuel.

Transport Canada has pulled samples of the oil from the ship and from the water for further analysis as part of its investigation. About 80 per cent of the spilled oil has been recovered by Western Canada Marine Response Corp., which was called out at 8 p.m. Wednesday to set up a boom around the ship.

Transport Canada said it believes the spill was likely caused by a malfunction, noting it was a new vessel built in Japan and released in February.

The ship, which was sailing under foreign flags, could face charges under Canada’s polluter-pays principle, which holds vessel owners responsible for pollution in marine waters, said coast guard assistant commissioner Roger Girouard.

“We expect the vessel company will now become part of the repair process. They are a responsible party,” Girouard said, noting the owners had at first denied there was a problem. “That’s a much cleaner process than we were facing before with a mystery spill.”

Costs are still being tallied, he added.

The vessel owners are co-operating with the investigation, said Jim Lawrence, spokesman for Alassia NewShips Management, the ship’s manager.

“Managers and owners of the M/V Marathassa emphatically state that the vessel’s insurance is fully compliant with Canadian law and duly in place,” he said. “The owners have cooperated fully and will meet all their legal obligations arising out of this unfortunate incident.”

Meanwhile, cleanup efforts are focused on English Bay and Stanley Park and have forced the temporary closure of the seawall around Siwash Rock.

The coast guard says it could take days or even weeks to clean up the oil on the city’s beaches, and discouraged residents from doing “freelance cleanups” as it could do more harm than good to local wildlife and aquatic species.

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Girouard urged residents to call in any sightings of oil on beaches, noting any recovered oil will have to be disposed of properly and not thrown into municipal garbage bins. He added it will take time and patience to clean the oil, which has been spotted in English Bay and West Vancouver’s Dundarave and Sandy Cove beaches. The coast guard is working with city officials in Vancouver and the North Shore as well as calling in experts from the province.

“A lick of oil did get away from the skimmer. I’m not sure how that happened,” he said, referring to an 80-metre stretch of spill at Sandy Cove. “We need to take it slowly and patiently so as not to impact the beach life itself. It’s an exercise in patience that is frustrating to the people who are watching, but it’s best in the long run.”

Meanwhile, Girouard defended the Coast Guard’s overall response rate to the oil spill in English Bay as “very solid,” even though a boom had not been established around the suspect vessel until seven hours after the initial call came in.

Girouard said that collecting 80 per cent of the spilled oil represents “an amazing success in the cleanup.

“In the main, we kept it from hitting the beaches. I’m satisfied that additional pollution to the harbour is not on the agenda.”

Girouard noted that four oiled birds have been captured and are under care. Others with oily feathers have been spotted but have so far evaded capture. There has also been one unconfirmed report of a seal in distress.

Girouard said he’s satisfied that things wouldn’t have been much different if the Kitsilano coast guard station, closed by the federal government two years ago, was still open.

He said the station was primarily a search-and-rescue base, although it had about 100 metres of boom on site — about one-fifth of what was needed for this week’s spill. “I’m satisfied that Kitsilano wouldn’t have made an iota of difference.”

Girouard said the organization faced a challenge Wednesday night because it did not have good details of the spill and the vessel owner had at first denied there was a problem, which led to a “murky situation” in pinpointing the source and size of the oil spill. As a result, the Western Canada Marine Response Corp. was not called until 8 p.m. and it took four hours to establish a boom.

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“What we had was an initial report. That report was not very definitive in what the problem was,” Girouard said. “We had to go through the process of going through an assessment.”

But, Girouard said, “once that understanding was there it was tremendous.”

The city wasn’t notified until 6 a.m. Thursday, which Girouard acknowledged will be looked at in terms of future protocol.

ksinoski@vancouversun.com

with files from Tiffany Crawford and Derrick Penner and the Canadian Press

TIMELINE OF OIL SPILLS IN VANCOUVER HARBOUR

Sept 1973: After two freighters collided in Burrard Inlet, about 240 metric tons of light bunker oil escaped into the harbour. Nearly one half of this release was effectively confined to the immediate vicinity of the vessels while the remainder quickly fanned into a large tear-shaped configuration 15-to-20 square km in area.

Apr 1989: Carelessness caused a 2,000-litre oil spill in Vancouver harbour when bunker oil overflowed from the bulk carrier Lok Pratima, which had just taken on 16,000 tonnes of canola, at the Pioneer terminal. About 1.5 kilometres of coastline, from the Pioneer Grain Terminals in North Vancouver to the SeaBus Terminal at Lonsdale Quay, were polluted.

Feb 1990: Some 40,000 litres of diesel fuel spilled from the fuel tank of a Polish fishing trawler berthed at Vanterm after it was rammed in heavy fog by a container ship. It was estimated that more than 1,000 seabirds were affected by the slick, and cleanup cost an estimated $1 million

Oct 1998: A canola oil spill in Vancouver harbour, attributed to a supervisor’s miscalculation that caused a holding tank to overflow, killed at least 200 migratory birds. Vancouver-based West Coast Reduction Ltd. pleaded guilty to environmental charges and agreed to donate $20,000 to Environment Canada for wildlife protection

Nov 1999: A huge canola oil spill contaminated Vancouver harbour from Point Atkinson to Point Grey, threatening waterfowl because oil-covered birds lose their natural ability to keep warm.

Feb 2000: Environment Canada estimated the canola oil spill to be as much as 50 tonnes when oil leaked from a pipe carrying the oil from a pumping station at Neptune Bulk Terminals (Canada) Ltd. to the Mauritian-registered tanker Poti.

July 2006: An oil spill occurred as the Hong Kong-registered grain ship MV Andre was receiving bunkering oil pumped from the fuel barge as it was anchored in Vancouver harbour, which sent between 8,000 and 14,000 litres of heavy fuel oil into Burrard Inlet

July 2007: A contractor punctured a Kinder Morgan pipeline under Inlet Drive in Burnaby and released a quarter-million litres of crude oil, causing evacuation of 40 homes. Some of the oil leaked into Burrard Inlet. Oil sheens as large as three metres by 10 metres spread throughout the inlet as far west as Canada Place in Vancouver and as far east as Deep Cove in North Vancouver.

Kate Bird, Vancouver Sun Research Librarian

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