April 28, 1991

WHEN IT comes to the crunch, the North Shore has no
way of knowing how much and what kinds of hazardous
goods are rolling through its streets.

Back-to-back runaway truck im-
cidents in West Vancouver on
April 17 and 18 and a roadside
hazardous goods scare in North
Vancouver the week before, have

By Michael Becker
News Reporter

iNustrated how North Shore to- The North Shore is unique.
pography increases the chances tor — possibly with the exception of the
potentially catastrophic conse- City of New Westminster, which

restricts their vehicles to. certain
routes. The North Shore is a real-
ly hilly terrain. It’s extremely dif-
ficult, if not impossible. for these
commercial vehicles not to

quences should a vehicle carrying
dangerous cargo meet with mis-
hap.

Said Motor
vehicle inspector

Vehicle Branch
Jay Northcott,

Classilieds 986-6222 Office, Editorial 985-2121

£
x
\
£
he

Display Advertising 980-0511

Distribution 986-1337

WV volunteer
Barbara Brink

18

52 pages

Diy ss

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

AT TWILIGHT in North Vancouver's Waterfront Park a photographer sets up
to shoot the city lights from the gazebo.

Quantities, types largely unknown
and unrecorded on North Shore

traverse steep hilly in order to
deliver products almost anywhere.

“When you consider that we've
had two runaways in a week on
the North Shore - what's fairly
significant,’’ he added.

BC Rail and Canadian National
Railways regularly provide local
fire departments with ao tally of
car loads of hazardous goods
moving throbgh the community:
last year BC Rail transported
2,388 car loads — primarily li-
quified petrolerm gases, methanol
and caustic soda.

In its annual
Vancouver Fire

West
in-

report, the
Department

RECORDED HAZARDOUS
goods that passed through West
Vancouver in 1990 (from the 1990
West Vancouver Fire Department
annual report; North Vancouver
City and District totals
unavailable):
Local distribution:

© gas — 55 million litres
© propane — 300,000 litres
e diesel — J.4 million litres

Hor eshoe Bay (government
wharves):
*oxplasives - 25.507 kilograms

chided the few statistics available
to quantify the amount of hay-
ardous goods transported through
West Vancouver.

Because the municipality is
home to a B.C. Ferries terminal,
figures are available for ferry-

* propane — 1,814 litres

Heosseshoe Bay (B.C. Ferries):
* diesel fuel — 3.7 million litres
¢ fuel oi! — 700,052 litres

“sodium nitrate — 8,437
kilograms

¢diphenylmethane -—- 245,484
litres

© sodium hydroxide — S.! million
kilograms

*iridium (radioactive) — 176
kilograms

* aluminum sulphate -- 444.000
kilosrams

bound hazardous goods truck

traffic.

Fire departments also bave a
handle on the amount of vit,
propane and diesel fuel bound fo:

See Local pause 5

25¢