Ice will hamper oil spill clean-ups off Nunavut: study

This is how the Davis Strait looks on a good day in August, but it’s generally rough and dark conditions mean that clean-up of an oil spill could be difficult, according to a new study prepared for the National Energy Board. (FILE PHOTO)

Efforts to keep the Deepwater Horizon oil well from spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico last year kept meeting one setback after another.

But if a similar blow-out or oil spill ever occurred after October in the Davis Strait off Nunavut, clean-up could be postponed by months — and, after such a delay, the clean-up would be less effective.

The odds are stacked against clean-up operations in the Davis Strait: even if an oil spill occurred from July to August in the Davis Strait, there would only be a one in three chance that any of the usual methods to clean up spills could be used.

To work well, all oil clean-up methods need calm, open water with low waves — conditions which aren’t common in the Davis Strait, which sees rough conditions during the ice-free months.

While there are no waves in winter when ice covers the Davis Strait, none of the three commonly-used combat oil-spills can be used then due to the ice cover.

That’s the problematic message from a “Spill Response Gap Study” on the Beaufort Sea and the Davis Strait, prepared by the S.L. Ross Environmental Research Ltd. for the National Energy Board of Canada, the agency that regulates offshore oil drilling in the Canadian Arctic.

The NEB is now developing guidelines for safety and environmental requirements for offshore drilling in the Arctic.

The expert study commissioned by the NEB, which looks at the challenges involved in promptly cleaning up an oil spill in the Davis Strait, states that “at least one” of the clean-up methods — burning, containment and recovery of the oil or applying dispersants to break up the oil on the water, could be used during the period when open water is usually present, August through November for Davis Strait.

But outside those periods orchestrating any clean-up efforts would be tricky.

The consultants looked at the “spill response gap,” that is, how “often a spill response option cannot be implemented due to environmental conditions such as winds, waves, temperature, visibility, and daylight.”

They examined when and how long the methods of mechanical recovery, dispersants, and burning would be unavailable due to fog, darkness and higher seas.

Their study shows how each of these methods requires specialized equipment: burning and containment and recovery both require the use of fire-resistant booms to collect and thicken oil for burning, or the use of “chemical herding agents to achieve the same effect,” and dispersants application requires large aircraft for application and needs good water conditions and visibility.

“If the response were deferred by high winds and rough seas,” delays in containing an oil spill on open water would cause problems because burning the gathered oil would become more difficult.

“If the response is significantly delayed, the effectiveness will drop sharply due to the rapid spreading and changes in character of the oil and the resulting difficulties in encountering and concentrating oil for burning,” the study says.

And, for a dispersant to be applied to oil to break it up, a ship would need to stay still at a single location, “which could be compromised by extreme wind and wave conditions or by encroaching ice.”

So, an oil spill that occurred during freeze-up or on ice would almost be better to deal with.

Then the “oiled ice” could be tracked while it’s in the ice and then burned on the surface during the following melt season.

As for an at-source containment of a leaky well — as was engineered in the Gulf of Mexico last year — companies would need to call in “Remote Operated Vehicles” working at the well-head, multiple workboats at the surface to support them, and a succession of tank vessels to store collected oil.

And those measures could all be affected by extreme wind and wave conditions or by encroaching ice, the study says.

The NEB, which visited Iqaluit, Clyde River and Pond Inlet for consultations, plans host a roundtable in Inuvik this September to look over the many comments and documents which it’s received during its review.

Then, the NEB board will consider the information gathered and issue a public report.

Its results will help develop filing requirements for future Arctic offshore drilling applications.

Some of the concerns raised about offshore Arctic drilling to date include spill response capability and infrastructure as well as the methods costs and responsibilities of a clean-up operation.