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

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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

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