Post by ferryfast admin on Mar 30, 2006 23:48:12 GMT -5
Governments passed over ferries
By TOM FLETCHER
Mar 29 2006
The politics of BC Ferries changed abruptly March 22, as government ministers and their critics struggled with the shocking news that the Queen of the North was on the bottom of the Inside Passage.
As his staff prepared for his departure to Prince Rupert that morning, Premier Gordon Campbell responded to questions about the state of the northern vessels, which had been identified only a few weeks earlier as being in urgent need of replacement to meet new federal safety regulations.
He was asked did the requirement for BC Ferries to seek a private operator for the northern routes delay the approval for new vessels?
“I don’t think that necessarily adds to the time,” Campbell said. “I think it makes sure you get the best value for the ferry service, and that’s one of the things that we should remember we had to deal with when we were elected, was a ferry service that was in serious financial difficulty. There was virtually no investment in the capital plan that was usable, and that’s one of the things we’ve had to deal with in the last five years.”
That’s as close as Campbell would come to mentioning the ‘F’ word, as in FastCat. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon also avoided the ‘F’ word later in the day, referring to the lack of investment in a fleet with an average age of 40 years and “other projects we all know about.”
NDP leader Carole James said later that the government can no longer blame the ill-fated FastCat experiment for its problems, adding that the search for a private operator was a waste of time.
“I think that was another delaying tactic of this government, when they moved it to a private company and they had to look at
alternative service providers,” James said. “It’s very clear when you look at the challenges of providing a ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert that it’s not a huge business opportunity for companies to come in.”
The day of the sinking was the same day when a meeting of the Treasury Board was scheduled to consider funds for three new ships for the northern routes. Campbell noted that a mandate for new vessels was approved a year ago, “so I would expect that we’ll have pretty rapid action on it.”
As details begin to emerge from the investigation of the Queen of the North incident, it became clearer that a newer vessel might well have met the same fate.
Investigators have indicated the ferry was travelling at its full cruising speed of 19 knots when it struck the rocks at Gil Island. Such an impact may well have torn the hull open along much of its length, making it questionable whether even a multi-chamber hull could have stayed afloat for long.
There’s no doubt that the hundreds of millions wasted on the fast ferry experiment would have paid for three new northern ships. The need for new ships was identified in the mid-1990s by then-premier Mike Harcourt and then-minister responsible Glen Clark.
There’s also no doubt that the current government didn’t revive that priority. The three new ferries under construction in Germany aren’t destined for the Inside Passage, but for higher-volume — and higher revenue — routes on the coastal ferry system.
Cleaning up oil
Among the lessons from the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 was the power of nature to break down and dissipate spilled oil, even the thick crude that spilled when that huge tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound off the Alaska coast. In his 1994 book Degrees of Disaster, Jeff Wheelwright meticulously documents how the pressure on government and Exxon officials to take action resulted in measures that were often more harmful than the oil. Blasting rocks with boiling water is good TV, but bad biology.
The situation off Gil Island was much more manageable, with light diesel the main contaminant. Officials lifted a containment boom when they saw that the fuel they had trapped was drifting away from shore. They judged it more effective to let nature take its course on the open water rather than try to hold and blot the diesel with booms and skimming equipment.
BC Ferries’ secrets
NDP critics made an issue of BC Ferries status as a quasi-private company, which makes it exempt from Freedom of Information requests. Carole James said last week that BC Ferries President David Hahn approached NDP ferries critic and North Coast MLA Gary Coons in February, asking him to press the government for new ships on the northern runs. While Hahn made public statements about the problem at the time, he denied going to the NDP.
“I find it interesting that Mr. Hahn would say that nothing happened, nothing went on,” James said. “We don’t have access to any of that information. We can’t track the correspondence between him and the transportation minister.”
One more coincidence: a potential private operator was on that Queen of the North sailing.
Tom Fletcher, the Black Press B.C. bureau reporter and a columnist, is at tfletcher@blackpress.ca.
By TOM FLETCHER
Mar 29 2006
The politics of BC Ferries changed abruptly March 22, as government ministers and their critics struggled with the shocking news that the Queen of the North was on the bottom of the Inside Passage.
As his staff prepared for his departure to Prince Rupert that morning, Premier Gordon Campbell responded to questions about the state of the northern vessels, which had been identified only a few weeks earlier as being in urgent need of replacement to meet new federal safety regulations.
He was asked did the requirement for BC Ferries to seek a private operator for the northern routes delay the approval for new vessels?
“I don’t think that necessarily adds to the time,” Campbell said. “I think it makes sure you get the best value for the ferry service, and that’s one of the things that we should remember we had to deal with when we were elected, was a ferry service that was in serious financial difficulty. There was virtually no investment in the capital plan that was usable, and that’s one of the things we’ve had to deal with in the last five years.”
That’s as close as Campbell would come to mentioning the ‘F’ word, as in FastCat. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon also avoided the ‘F’ word later in the day, referring to the lack of investment in a fleet with an average age of 40 years and “other projects we all know about.”
NDP leader Carole James said later that the government can no longer blame the ill-fated FastCat experiment for its problems, adding that the search for a private operator was a waste of time.
“I think that was another delaying tactic of this government, when they moved it to a private company and they had to look at
alternative service providers,” James said. “It’s very clear when you look at the challenges of providing a ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert that it’s not a huge business opportunity for companies to come in.”
The day of the sinking was the same day when a meeting of the Treasury Board was scheduled to consider funds for three new ships for the northern routes. Campbell noted that a mandate for new vessels was approved a year ago, “so I would expect that we’ll have pretty rapid action on it.”
As details begin to emerge from the investigation of the Queen of the North incident, it became clearer that a newer vessel might well have met the same fate.
Investigators have indicated the ferry was travelling at its full cruising speed of 19 knots when it struck the rocks at Gil Island. Such an impact may well have torn the hull open along much of its length, making it questionable whether even a multi-chamber hull could have stayed afloat for long.
There’s no doubt that the hundreds of millions wasted on the fast ferry experiment would have paid for three new northern ships. The need for new ships was identified in the mid-1990s by then-premier Mike Harcourt and then-minister responsible Glen Clark.
There’s also no doubt that the current government didn’t revive that priority. The three new ferries under construction in Germany aren’t destined for the Inside Passage, but for higher-volume — and higher revenue — routes on the coastal ferry system.
Cleaning up oil
Among the lessons from the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 was the power of nature to break down and dissipate spilled oil, even the thick crude that spilled when that huge tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound off the Alaska coast. In his 1994 book Degrees of Disaster, Jeff Wheelwright meticulously documents how the pressure on government and Exxon officials to take action resulted in measures that were often more harmful than the oil. Blasting rocks with boiling water is good TV, but bad biology.
The situation off Gil Island was much more manageable, with light diesel the main contaminant. Officials lifted a containment boom when they saw that the fuel they had trapped was drifting away from shore. They judged it more effective to let nature take its course on the open water rather than try to hold and blot the diesel with booms and skimming equipment.
BC Ferries’ secrets
NDP critics made an issue of BC Ferries status as a quasi-private company, which makes it exempt from Freedom of Information requests. Carole James said last week that BC Ferries President David Hahn approached NDP ferries critic and North Coast MLA Gary Coons in February, asking him to press the government for new ships on the northern runs. While Hahn made public statements about the problem at the time, he denied going to the NDP.
“I find it interesting that Mr. Hahn would say that nothing happened, nothing went on,” James said. “We don’t have access to any of that information. We can’t track the correspondence between him and the transportation minister.”
One more coincidence: a potential private operator was on that Queen of the North sailing.
Tom Fletcher, the Black Press B.C. bureau reporter and a columnist, is at tfletcher@blackpress.ca.