Remember all that noise city council made more than a year ago about the increase in oil tanker traffic in local waters?
As faithful readers will recall, Mayor Gregor Robertson and councillors hosted a meeting at city hall last summer to discuss what was then a hot topic. Why, they asked, had tanker traffic increased from 22 vessels in 2005 to 71 in 2010? Is a catastrophic oil spill inevitable? Who will be responsible for the cleanup?
In what seemed like a congressional hearing, marine industry types, including Port Metro Vancouver, answered question after question. One of the responses was that tankers were better fabricated these days-double hulls- than the infamous Exxon Valdez, which spilled its load in 1989 on the shores of Alaska.
Some historical context was also provided.
The Trans Mountain pipeline system, which runs from Alberta to Burnaby, has operated since 1953 and been pumping crude oil to these shores since some guy named Frederick J. Hume was mayor of Vancouver.
In the end, the recommendation was to bounce the topic and concerns over to the Port Cities Committee at Metro Vancouver. This is a committee chaired by the City of North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Mayor Darrell Mussatto and includes nine city councillors from the region, including Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Coun. Geoff Meggs.
So what has the committee been up to on this issue for the last year?
"Our focus has been more on taxation and trying to work with the Port to make sure that municipalities get a fair amount of Port taxes from the industrial users of the waterfront," Mussatto told me. "So that's been our focus but it doesn't mean we've forgotten about the port tankers and tanker traffic."
Mussatto acknowledged that a committee comprised of municipal politicians didn't have a lot of power to make dramatic changes to what is a federally regulated port. If anything, the noise they could make would be "symbolic."
What municipalities can do, he said, is improve transportation options to get people out of their cars and design cities in a way so they are not reliant on a motor vehicle. It's a necessary shift but a "huge challenge," Mussatto added.
I spoke to Mussatto the day after a report surfaced in the media saying people prefer to drive to work because transit either takes too long or it's not convenient-a common complaint in the Tri-Cities, where more houses and condos continue to be built as politicians squabble over building the "Nevergreen" rapid transit line.
Mussatto recently returned from holidays in South America where he said governments implemented road tolls that pay for transit. So, he said, "sooner or later, we're going to have to get around to that point of view."
(Don't get me started on why Whistler-bound vacationers/property owners/skiers/dudes don't have to pay a toll for that taxpayer-funded highway but I have to pay four bucks if I'm stuck in traffic out in Langley and want to cross the Golden Ears Bridge to Maple Ridge).
Meanwhile, as I reported last month, tanker traffic has dramatically decreased this year because oil producers in Alberta and refineries in Washington State struck deals that dictate crude to be delivered through the Trans Mountain pipeline, which has an extension to Washington State.
But that's the trend this year. As Chris Badger, the Port's chief operating officer told me, the shift to the pipeline doesn't mean the port won't see an increase in tanker traffic next year. And there's not much Mussatto and other civic politicians can do about it.
Twitter: @Howellings
