Probability and Consequence: A Submission to the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on the British Columbia Offshore Oil and Gas Moratorium (2004)

Introduction

This paper examines the issue of risk related to marine oil spills in the region covered by the British Columbia offshore oil and gas moratorium. Its focus is on tanker spills as opposed to exploration or production spills. It looks at risk as a product of two main components or variables:

1. The probability of a negative event, i.e. spill occurring, and
2. The consequences that may result if that event does occur[1]

The paper critiques the 2002 Report of the Scientific Review Panel on British Columbia Offshore Hydrocarbon Development, the so-called Strong Report, through the prism of this definition of risk. In so doing, it concludes the following about the Strong Report:

• The probability of a major tanker spill occurring in the Queen Charlotte Basin was largely ignored ( and thereby underestimated );
• While the potential negative effects of catastrophic spills were recognised, the capacity of technology to mitigate them was assumed rather than demonstrated.

Risk Re-assessed

At the Royal Society workshops in Vancouver, a lively debate took place regarding the likelihood of a major or catastrophic spill occurring anywhere in the world, but particularly off the North Coast if the offshore moratorium were to be lifted and exploration and production to occur. International statistics were cited purporting to show that the probability was extremely low. At the same time, it seemed to be generally accepted that however unlikely such a spill, if one did occur the consequences for the marine environment could be disastrous.

This risk paradigm of low probability but potentially severe consequences appears to be shared in the conclusions of the afore-mentioned Strong Report:

“Although risks of direct impacts on marine ecosystems may be small, there is poor understanding of potential long-term cumulative impacts on marine ecosystems of oil and gas spills or discharges from production activities, or of the impact of seismic activity on marine mammals in particular and the ecosystem in general. These potential impacts may be of very low probability but may be catastrophic in the short term and carry serious and possibly irreversible consequences in the long-term” ( emphasis added ). [2]

In determining that the risk “may be small”, Strong and his co-panellists appear to be looking at risk merely in terms of probability. Consequence, in other words, is excluded from the equation, even though it is recognised that those same consequences could be disastrous. In the body of the Report, the potential for offshore hydrocarbon development to cause irreparable harm to the environment is repeated:

“A rich and diverse ecosystem such as the Queen Charlotte Basin presents a number of options for sustainable economic benefit, including fisheries and tourism. But, under these options, as well as under oil and gas production, serious disturbance to habitat or any biological features could ensue and possibly cause damage to the entire ecosystem; and there is the possibility that this damage might be irreversible.” ( emphasis added )[3]

Had the conclusion about consequences made it into the Strong report’s risk equation, i.e. risk is a product of probability X consequence, then a recommendation in favour of maintaining the moratorium might have resulted. Instead, in the most often-cited passage from the Strong report, the conclusion is that:

“There is no inherent or fundamental inadequacy of science or technology, properly applied in an appropriate regulatory framework, to justify a blanket moratorium on such activities[4]

A full reading of the Strong report reveals, however, that the panel’s examination of science and technology was restricted to the exploration and production phase of hydrocarbon development. In other words, in arriving at their principal conclusion the panellists almost entirely sidestepped the issue of spill response technology and its adequacy or inadequacy. Moreover, they paid scant attention to transportation issues in general, and that of tankers in particular.

Other than endorsing in situ burning as a viable response option[5], Strong and his colleagues never really did examine whether science and technology was capable of mitigating the effects of an offshore spill. When it came to a recommendation on spill response, all the Report could muster was a call for British Columbia and Canada to give high priority to:

“…the enhancement of capabilities for oil-spill responses and countermeasures, both for the coast in general, and particularly for areas likely to be designated for offshore exploration”[6]

Had Strong looked at the ‘state of the art’ of spill response technology worldwide, he would have bumped up against a yawning ‘technology gap’: there is basically no way to effectively contain and recover spilled oil offshore under the kinds of conditions routinely experienced in the Queen Charlotte Basin, particularly during winter. In other words, you can create the world’s best sensitivity atlases, and you can throw as much equipment and human resources at an offshore spill as you like, but if it doesn’t work, then you are wasting time, effort and money, and putting people’s lives at risk in the process.

Strong and his colleagues seem to be ambivalent regarding the power of science and technology. At one point, for instance, it is asserted that science and technology’s role is to “maintain risks at an acceptable level and to mitigate them”[7] In contrast to this upbeat assessment of science and technology’s role, elsewhere the panel proclaimed the following in the context of spills resulting from exploration and drilling:

“It is recognised that the risk of a large loss of oil has a low, although finite, probability of occurring. However, since such incidents can occur, it seems prudent that the BC government should understand its potential liabilities in such a contingency before a decision is taken to remove the moratorium”[8] ( emphasis added ).

This could be a subtle clue that the panel itself was aware of the pitfalls of marine spill response technology when faced with the prospect of a spill of catastrophic proportions.

The Strong panel’s ambivalence also shows in connection with the precautionary principle. At one point it pays lip service to the principle, but in the same breath takes a chainsaw to it by also endorsing the following quotation:

“The goal of precaution is to prevent harm, not to prevent progress”[9]

Apparently, then, offshore hydrocarbon exploration and production is deemed to be synonymous with ‘progress’. There seems to be a belief that progress takes precedence over harm, or that harm is the price one has to pay for progress. But the question one must ask is: progress at what price? Is progress to be sought at any cost? Is it progress to add to the greenhouse effect? The panel offers few clues.

‘Nice to Know’ as Opposed to ‘Need to Know’

The Strong panel also seems keenly interested in promoting marine scientific research, and it clearly sees lifting the moratorium as a way of boosting R&D budgets:

“The panel concludes on the basis of its review that the existing blanket moratorium has served its purpose, but has also set back our understanding of the coasts and oceans of British Columbia. It is time now to return marine scientific research to levels appropriate for a modern advanced society in general terms, and particularly as a basis for comprehensive, balanced and inclusive deliberation and assessment of specific proposals for BC offshore activity”[10]

It is nice to know that the moratorium has “served its purpose”, and it is undoubtedly true that the moratorium has put a damper on west coast marine science budgets. Meanwhile, the marine environment has done exceedingly well over the years without massive research budgets, as evidenced by the thriving regional fishery. Furthermore, lifting the moratorium should not be used as an excuse to top up research budgets for the next decade in federal research institutions.

Experts can say all they want about ‘knowledge gaps’, science gaps and technology gaps that may or may not have to be filled before or after a decision is made regarding the lifting of the moratoria. But, the question is: do we know enough already to inform a decision one way or another? Looked at another way, is pumping tens of millions of dollars into research and development likely to have more than an incremental effect on risk reduction or mitigation of negative effects? For at the end of the day, we will still be faced with a hostile offshore operating environment and a rich, biodiverse, and highly vulnerable marine ecosystem.

What the Strong report, the JWEL report[11] and the presentations of the scientists and engineers at the Vancouver federal science panel workshops have taught us is that we know a tremendous amount about the North Coast and Queen Charlotte Basin marine ecosystem. Surely what we do know is just as important ( if not more important ) than what we do not know. With respect to salmon, for instance, we now know that they are important not just to humans but to the functioning of the entire coastal/marine ecosystem. Scientists tagging them to find out where they go may not appreciate this vital role, but the Strong report apparently does:

“Salmon subsequently become a key species contributing to the fertility of forest ecosystems through their use as food for bears, eagles and other species”[12]

In other words, a decision regarding the moratorium should be based on the wealth of material and information already available, instead of embarking on an expensive, potentially long-term quest for more knowledge, asking questions for which there may never be answers. Better no science at all than science which merely sets the stage for a coordinated assault on a panoply of endangered, threatened and other species in the region.

The Ripple Effect

As Dr. Merv Fingas pointed out to the science panel during the Vancouver workshop, there is a lot we do not know about oil spill response, and a lot we don’t know about the Queen Charlotte Basin either. On the first point, we really don’t have the technology to contain and recover spilled oil offshore under extreme, or even non-extreme, operating conditions. As for the Queen Charlotte Basin itself, for starters we don’t know what kind of oil we are dealing with, if indeed oil is ever found offshore. The type of oil will have a very significant impact on its behaviour and fate in the water, and thus on spill response planning and operations.

On the other hand, we know that lifting the offshore oil and gas moratorium could have cumulative effects that go well beyond hydrocarbon exploration and development. Assuming hydrocarbon activity were to resume, even if a subsea pipeline were built to eventually bring discovered oil to shore, tankers could still be needed to ship the crude oil from the mainland to refineries and markets. Indeed, hydrocarbon exploration and development may never occur ( or take years to get started ), whereas crude oil shipments by tanker could in theory start up the day after the moratorium is lifted.

Lifting the moratorium could also have a ripple effect on other oil-related developments in the region. At least two tanker-related proposals have been mentioned in public so far, although admittedly both are in the very early stages, and may in fact never materialise. One involves weekly shipments of 300,000 tons of crude oil to Prince Rupert from Asia in one ULCC[13] voyage per week. The other proposal, which we are going to use for our case study, is Enbridge’s Gateway proposal to ship 400,000 barrels of Athabasca tar sands oil each day to Prince Rupert or Kitimat via pipeline, for subsequent transport by tanker to Asian and Californian markets, starting as early as 2009[14].

Consideration of these two proposals is important, because while the risks of spills from offshore oil and gas exploration and production may be low, accounting for on the order of 3 percent of all the oil spilled in the marine environment, tankers account for a further 12 percent of all oil spilled in any given year[15]. Introducing this tanker element, then, seriously ratchets up the risk levels. If all goes according to plan, within the next 5-6 years one could see the North Coast go from an area where there is virtually no tanker traffic to one where supertankers laden with crude oil are a regular feature on the horizon. This is before offshore oil and gas even comes into production, assuming it does. Thus, the cumulative risk run from lifting the offshore moratorium is something the Royal Society expert panel will no doubt carefully weigh in the course of its deliberations.

Tanker ‘A’ on the Rocks

The hypothetical situation we are putting forward here involves what might happen under a worst case scenario, where a catastrophic spill occurs in Queen Charlotte Sound, involving a large, batch spill of heavy, synthetic crude oil from a passing supertanker. ITOPF statistics indicate that one can expect three tanker spills greater than 700 tonnes each year somewhere on the worldocean, and there have been a total of 20 spills of 240,000 barrels or more since 1967[16]. On average, we can expect an extremely large spill to occur every two to three years.

The reason this admittedly pessimistic scenario is chosen is so that the British Columbian public does not fall victim to a false sense of security. For no one can guarantee there won’t be any oil spills if the moratorium is lifted. On the contrary: it is virtually certain that there will be spills at some point in the future if the bans on oil and gas exploration and production, and on crude tanker traffic are lifted. There is only a small chance that a spill will turn into a catastrophic one, but it is realistic nonetheless to have a contingency plan for such an incident, since it is definitely within the realm of possibility, and has happened before, in other parts of the world.

Blowin’ in the Wind

The public would be in for a big surprise were a catastrophic spill to occur; for there is a widespread misconception that if a major offshore spill occurs, it will be quickly and effectively dealt with. The Strong and JWEL reports themselves seem to share this viewpoint. The Strong report, for instance, says that “ …any adverse environmental impacts would …require rapid response and remediation”[17]. Certainly, rapid response would be required, but would it be possible, and is it likely to be effective, or is widespread, long-lasting damage inevitable?

As Craig Dougans of Burrard Clean Operations mentioned in his remarks to the science panel in Vancouver, offshore response technology hasn’t evolved much in the case of the past thirty years. The number of large spills per year from tankers has come down from 24.2 spills per year in the seventies to 3 per year since the year 2000[18], but response technology has more or less stagnated, in spite of a substantial investment in R&D. And after dealing with in the order of 450 major offshore spills in the course of that thirty year period[19], the oil majors, the tanker industry and the insurance industry have basically given up on offshore containment and recovery. As evidence of this, one need only look at equipment inventories for responding to marine oil spills; most of the oil industry’s global response effort is focussed on shoreline protection and cleanup. Coast Guards in developed countries do possess dedicated response vessels for offshore work, but these are largely ineffective. Combined efforts at offshore containment and recovery typically result in 10-15 percent of spilled oil being recovered[20].

Go/No Go

Thus, the kinds of questions we must ask ourselves are:

• Should a development project go ahead even though the chances are there will be little one can do to mitigate the damage if something goes wrong and an environmental disaster looms?
• Is the public prepared for the possible consequences of a catastrophic spill? Do they understand that booms and skimmers just don’t work under less than ideal conditions, and that conditions are seldom ideal in the event of a spill?
• Can financial compensation ever make up for potential destruction to the environment?

Perhaps, as Ian Jordaan said at the science panel workshops, the public needs to be educated about the risks; their tolerance level also has to be checked out. Time after time, spill after spill, experience demonstrates that as soon as a major spill happens, the public expects those responsible and the authorities ( the public doesn’t really care which! ) to clean things up right away. Then, as the dead or oily birds start washing ashore, there is outrage that such a tragedy could have been allowed to happen in the first place, and questions are invariably raised as to why the recovery operation was so slow, and so feeble.

We are barely in a position to respond to a catastrophic spill from a tanker in the Strait of Juan de Fuca or Haro Strait, let alone the Queen Charlotte Basin. We simply do not have the resources at our disposal to effectively deal with such a spill under adverse conditions. We would have to draw upon other resources in the region, and internationally, but even then there is an almost total absence of trained personnel to deal with shoreline assessment and cleanup. Will the situation be any different in the remote Queen Charlotte Basin, where the operating conditions are far worse?

A Hypothetical Incident

Dr. Merv Fingas mentioned that realistic spill scenarios have to be developed for the Queen Charlotte Basin. An extremely large spill, i.e. over 150,000 barrels[21], is a realistic scenario to envisage, particularly in light of announced plans for crude tanker shipments that could go ahead within the next four to six years.

Our scenario involves a tanker spill of the same order as the Exxon Valdez spill, in the middle of Queen Charlotte Sound. We are attempting to determine whether a credible response can be mounted there, and what might be the consequences for the environment, economy, etc. if the response was either too weak or too late.

For the purposes of our simulation, the spill has occurred in the year 2009, five years after a sensitivity atlas was completed for the Central Coast; in other words, we know all we need to know about sensitive resources, hotspots, etc. Assume that at 4 AM on March 6, a total of 240,000 barrels of Athabasca heavy, synthetic crude oil accidentally releases from the holds of a stricken tanker in the Sound. The tanker suffered from structural failure after being hit by a giant, 30-metre wave during a marine bomb.[22]

Using ADIOS2, a spill weathering model developed by NOAA and available to users free of charge off of their website[23], if we assume that the wind speed is 25 knots from 224 degrees at the time of the spill, that the sea temperature is 4 degrees Celsius, and that the current is 2 knots towards 37 degrees, then of the original 240,000 barrels spilled, 40,000 barrels will disperse, and a further 40,000 barrels will have evaporated after four days. Thus, one will be left with 160,000 barrels of the original cargo to recover and/or clean up. However, the effect of emulsification will mean that this 160,000 barrels will have actually turned into an oil-water mixture of perhaps twice to three times that amount, compounding the response challenge and increasing the potential for negative impact.

Let’s assume that the nearest spill response depots are located at Bella Bella and Kitimat on the mainland, as well as Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. The resources of these centres would immediately be called upon, as well as those of the rest of Canada, the United States, and probably the international community, e.g. Oil Spill Response Limited in Southampton, England, and East Asia Response Limited in Singapore. However, given the standard weather conditions for this time of year, the relatively short days, the distance from the spill site, and the time required to organise and mount a response effort, it could easily be 48 to 72 hours before anyone is in a position to start containing and recovering oil off the surface, with the appropriate vessels, storage tanks, booms, skimmers, etc.[24]

Once in place, the standard response option of containment and recovery at sea, using mechanical equipment will probably not work; poor operating conditions could prevent the effective deployment of these devices for days, if not weeks, if the following figures for wintertime wind speeds in Hecate Strait are any indication[25]: