cra NEWS phote Cindy Goodman WORKERS REPAIR the steeple on St. Edmund’s Parish lightning last year. Automotives............27 Classified Ads..........34 Ecolnfo................ 9 Home & Garden.........13 What's Going On........25 The board recently approved a submission to the federal gov- ernment’s Public Review Panel on Tanker Safety and Marine Spills Response Capability. The submission argues that proposals for increased oil shipments war- rant examination under the en- vironmental assessment and review process. The board also expressed con- cern over the impact of shipping activity on air and water quality in the inlet and questioned the adequacy and entsicement of ex- isting regulations. But board member and North Vancouver District Mayor Marilyn Baker moved that the quest an inquiry prior to further expansion of hazardous materials traffic through the port. Said Baker, ‘‘We also re- quested that the Vancouver Port Corporation provide information and consultation on the rationale for examining, which they’re do- ing right now, increased tanker size. Our question is, ‘Why are you looking at that?’” Tanker movement regulations in the port of Vancouver sets the upper size limit for tankers enter- ing Burrard Inlet at 90,000 (on- nes deadweight (cargo carrying capacity). Crude oil moves through the port in ships loaded at the Trans-Mountain Pipeline Com- pany Westridge marine terminal in Burnaby. Trans Mountain has GVRD go a step further and re- NORTH Vancouver District church in North Vancouver. The church was struck by Friday, cloudy with sunny periods. Saturday, periods of rain. Highs near 10°C. Increased tanke THE GREATER Vancouver Regional District board is looking for some hard answers from the Vancouver Port Corp. on the controversial issue of increased oi! tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet. By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter asked the port to spell out the reasons for maintaining a 90,000-tonne limit. Said Grayden Hayward, vice- president of environment, . gov- ernment and community relations for Trans Mountain Pipeline Mayor Marilyn Beker ...why examination into larger tankers? Co., ‘What's happening now in the world of shipping is that the new configuration, especially with the Japanese, is around 105,000 deadweight tonnes. They’re the most modern and safest ships. Some of the shippers have asked to bring this type of ship in." The Burnaby marine terminal recently underwent a $61-million leaders cold. Said North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce president Debbie Trinacty, ‘‘As a chamber, we haven’t had a chance to discuss the budget yet but personally there's some disappointment. Although there’s been a voiced attempt to reduce the deficit over the next few years, not enough was done.”’ Roger Cayford, a banker and the vice-president of the West Vancouver Chamber of Com- merce, welcomes the announced budget cuts, but believes they are too little and too late. “‘My immediate reaction is that the spending cuts come a little late,’? Cayford said. ‘‘We've writ- ten letters to Mr. Wilson on the issue. He’s only accomplished the minimum required and, of course, he paints a very rosy prospect of the economic future. I think he’s very vulnerable. I question his economic assumptions."’ Both North Shore Chambers of Commerce are on record as urging Wilson ‘‘to do everything possi- ble’’ to reduce the deficit. As a West Vancouver tax practi- tioner and spokesman for the Society of Management Accoun- tants of Canada, Don Nilson ap- plauded the news of no new taxes, but questioned the federal gov- ernment’s plan to deal with the deficit. “No significant changes to the income tax act is good,’ he said. “It’s just been year after year of changes there. We're also happy that the increase of the annual def- icit has been put in check. But we r traffic expansion to step up oil-handling capacity. Following public hear- ings in both Vancouver and Bur- naby, the expansion was approv- ed by the National Energy Board in 1988. The company installed new pump stations along a pipeline carrying oil from Ed- monton to Burnaby and con- structed three 150,000-barrel- capacity tanks at the Burnaby terminal. The expansion will result in more and possibly larger oil tankers passing through the port. 3 - Friday, February 23. 3990 - North Shore News NORTH SHORE REACTION Federal budget leaves local businessmen cold THE TOUGH federal budget announced Tuesday in Ot- tawa hit the North Shore in the industrial heart with the sinking of the half billion dollar Polar 8 icebreaker contract, but Finance Minister Michael Wilson’s much-vaunted assault on the national deficit has also left local business By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter certainly have to question the means of doing so. It really is a matter of passing the buck on to the provinces.”’ According to Nilson, Tuesday's big news is that the federal gov- ernment did little to reduce the debt. a all A . CAPILANO-Howe Sound MP Mary Collins ...Polar 8 cost too high. ‘*What they have dropped fron the deficit this year is trivial,’? he said. ‘*He lays out this plan for us to say, ‘Look, just hang on for five years and we're going to be out of this.’ And everybody goes, ‘Great. What a great guy.’And the joke is there’s no way he's going to attain those five-year estimates.’ Lower interest rate levels are the key to Wilson’s goal of cutting the $31-billion deficit to $10 billion by 1995. According to Nilson, the raises concerns Added Hayward, ‘‘We’re ready to go now. Our plan is to reach the maximum capacity for exports over three years.”’ _The largest tanker loaded at the Westridge terminal in Bur- naby last year was the Honshu Spirit, at 86,857 deadweight ton- nes. The ship made two local calls last year. Said Hayward, ‘‘it's a great debate from the standpoint of safety and risk whether you’re better off to have one big one or twice the traffic and half the size. Safety measures announced IMPERIAL OIL Ltd. and Trans Mountain Pipeline officials an- nounced Feb. 14 in North Van- couver new _ preventive measures to manage risks created by the movement of crude oil through Vancouver harbor. The new safety measures in- clude: *four tugs to escort the vessel from Trans Mountain’s Westridge terminal in Burnaby through the Second Narrows; 7; wr Said Hayward, ‘‘That process is gradually being implemented. What it takes us from is anprox- imately six million (export oil) barrels a year to approximateiy 14 million barrels per year. At six that's about 12 tankers and 12 barges per month. We will about double that.”’ The tankers deliver their loads to Southeast Asia and Japan while barges carry oii to Tacoma. *two tugs to escort the vessel from Second Narrows through to English Bay; *an escort tug for the vessel as it moves through Boundary Pass and Haro Strait to Victoria. Imperial Oil also announced that it will be spending up to $10 million over the next three years to improve its capability to res- pond to oil spills and to help in the upgrading of industry coop- eratives in areas including the Vancouver harbor. We've been operating for 35 years out of this location. We've loaded 538 vessels during that period and we've never had an accident or incident of any size. There’s risk attached to many things we do. Fhe question is, can risk be managed? We think it can,.”’ Tankers loading at Westridge must have segregated ballast and inert gus systems for safety pur- underlying interest rate average for the 1992 to 1995 period is 7.2 per cent. But Wilson's projected 11.1 per cent rate is already lower than actual short-term rates in the 13 per cent range. Associate Minister of Defence and Capilano-Howe Sound MP Mary Collins called the budget tough, fair and realistic. Locally, the scrapping of the Polar 8 a vessel pinned with a price tag of well over $600 million, is an im- mediate and visibly tough cut. Said Collins, ‘It (Polar 8) just got to the point where the cost ef- fectiveness in terms of achieving policy goals, no longer really made sense. I think you have to recognize that shipbuilding, as an industry, is generally on the decline worldwide. We’ve been rationaliz- ing shipbuilding throughout East- ern Canada and there obviously will be some of that in Western Canada as well.” Collins dismisses the charge that the federal government is simply passing on to the provinces the unpopular task of raising taxes. B.C., for example, will have to come up with an extra $120 million - this year alone. But said Collins, ‘tit just means that everybody is going to have to spend smarter. It’s about 0.7 per cent of provincial revenue. [t’s not very much. I would think they could find ways to accommodate that, as we have in our budget.’ A March | meeting, organized by the North and West Vancouver chambers of commerce, and featuring Michael Wilson as guest speaker, has been moved from Cheers Restaurant to the North Shore Winter Ciub, 1325 East Keith Rd., North Vancouver, Seating is limited to 180. Doors open at 7 a.m. poses. They also require crude-oil washing systems. All foreign deep-sea vessels carry a pilot in and out of Burrard Inlet. Meanwhile the port is spending $225,000 to develop a com- puterized profile simulating navigational conditions at Second Narrows. Said port spokesman Barbara Duggan, ‘‘We expect this will give us some really solid answers on the size of vessels that can safely ply Second Narrows. We already have some very stiff rules. For example, nothing (no other traffic) moves when there’s a tanker moving between First Narrows and Second Narrows. Nevertheless with ship technology changing so rapidly, we wanted a better handle on what could move safely.”’ In addition to providing clues as to what kind of marine traffic Second Narrows waters might safely bear, up to six B.C. coastal pilots will be trained in New York on the computerized simulator. “tt works on precisely the same principle as an aircraft simulator does. This will create exactly the same navigational conditions in various sizes of tanker. They’re able to simulate all the tides and wind conditions and back eddies we have in Se- cond Narrows,"’ Duggan said. A November report on oil transportation and oil spills, submitted to Premier Bill Vander Zaim by special advisor David Anderson, recommended the phasing out of crude-oil ship- ments through the port.