Charlie.

Firstly it is the ship that is at fault in this case. While we dwell on the feds response to this incident lets keep in mind that under the Canada Shipping Act it is the ship that has the responsibility to report this discharge and activate its response organization which in the case of the west coast is WCMRC. They apparently failed to notice their release or failed to bother to provide notice and activate their RO. It came down to the CCG acting on a notice of the Port to inspect and activate WCMRC. The fact that night ops were conducted and to a degree were successful in collecting alot of the bunker is a testament to the expertise of WCMRC. Of course if the conditions had been rougher all best would be off. With respect to EC I appreciate the attention the loss of our group has had but to be clear in these cases EC Emergencies would never have co-ordinated the clean-up. That is the duty of the responsible vessel, its agent of the CCG if the vessel is unwilling, unable or unknown..in this case unwilling appears to be the situation. The EC group's responsibility was to co-ordinate the science to support the response. The regional folks that were redistributed to other programs were regional experts, had relationships with other environmental and resource protection agencies and understood the vulnerbilities of the region. We collaborated to ensure that the responsible vessel or the CCG had the best possible information to ensure and effective response was undertaken. The folks now in Montreal while are still some of the best in the world lack the regional knowledge; in some cases, the regional relationships; in some cases, but more so the direction to play the role they did in the past.

Back to English Bay. Be thankful the conditions were what they were. It could have been considerably worse.

Take this all with a grain of salt, I am just a former emergencies officer.