An oil spill near the Lions Gate Bridge would pollute the shoreline all along the Burrard Inlet within a matter of hours, a new reportcommissioned by the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, and the Tsleil-Waltuth Nation has found.
The computer modelling by Genwest Systems Inc., from Edmonds, Wa, looked at the potential trajectory of an oil spill occurring in the inlet. The package of information was gathered together to fight Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and the rise in tanker traffic the proposed pipeline would bring to the area.
“What we learned from that modelling,was that [within] hours— not days—hours, 50 to 90 per cent of the oil that spilled would reach the shorelines of cities, municipalities, First Nations —all across the Burrard Inlet,” Vancouver’s deputy mayor, Andrea Reimer told CBC News.
Genwest was asked to measure what would happen if 16 million litres of oil — just 20 per cent of a tanker’s load — spilled into the water near the Lions Gate Bridge.