TROUBLED WATERS: ADVOCATES AWAIT FEDERAL SOLUTIONS TO CONTAINER SHIP SPILLS and LOST SEA CANS
DEBRIS FROM 2021 MV ZIM KINGSTON SPILL SITLL WASHING UP ACROSS VANCOUVER ISLAND’S WEST COAST
An aerial view of the burned shipping containers aboard the M/V Zim Kingston.
Christmas decorations, footwear, fridge parts, takeout container lids and urinal mats – those are just some of the products that washed ashore for months after the MV Zim Kingston spill off the west coast of Vancouver Island on Oct. 21, 2021.
More than a year later, the wreckage is still washing up from the spill site near the west entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with debris littering the shoreline anywhere from northern Haida Gwaii to South Vancouver Island. Only four of the ship’s 109 containers have been recovered, and the largely volunteer-led cleanup continues.
“Imagine a kilometres-long stretch of beach that’s covered in things like plastic blow-up unicorns,”
Two of the Zim Kingston containers carried potassium amyl xanthate – a toxic and flammable chemical. The ocean diluted most of the xanthate before it could concentrate in biota, but there could still be other toxic chemicals in the 105 lost containers.
It’s not the first time dozens of containers have gone overboard near Vancouver Island’s coastline. In November 2016, the 179-metre-long Hanjin Seattle lost 35 containers in stormy waters near the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Two of them washed ashore on beaches in Tofino, and fridges spilled along the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.
As with the Zim Kingston spill, the response was slow.By the time a large-scale cleanup was coordinated, sheets of polyurethane foam from the Hanjin Seattle had already smashed into smithereens and would dot the coastline for years. It breaks into such small pieces; it’s almost impossible to clean up.
Environmentalists want the shipping industry and federal government to craft a management system that tackles the growing issue of container spills. They say lax regulations, slow and poorly coordinated responses, and limited accountability for shippers mean that harmful debris continues to pollute the ocean and coasts, even years after a spill.
Container shipping is big business. In 2021, the international industry transported more than 240 million containers, worth more than $7 trillion US in cargo. At any time, there are at least 6,300 container ships en route. The industry was valued at $6.4 billion US in 2020, and it’s expected to grow by 12% annually.
But it’s not always smooth sailing. The World Shipping Council’s 2022 Containers Lost at Sea Report shows that an average of more than 1,600 containers have been lost at sea every year since 2008. At least 2,100 containers went missing in 2021, and an estimated 3,000 containers were lost in the northern Pacific Ocean between November 2020 and April 2021 alone.
Of these thousands of lost containers, less than three per cent ever get recovered.
Oil, garbage and sewage issues fall under the International Maritime Organization’s jurisdiction, yet container spills don’t, and there are no comparable, well-established organizations to deal with them.
Canadian Coast Guard spokesperson Michelle Imbeau said polluters must finance cleanup in Canadian waters “to the satisfaction of the Government of Canada.” However, government agencies may step in when the responsible party is unknown, or can’t or won’t do the cleanup.
In the case of the Zim Kingston, the ship’s owner, Danaos Shipping Co. Ltd., co-led the spill response with the coast guard and hired a contractor to retrieve the containers and debris that washed ashore, Imbeau explained.
Danaos had to check, clean and report on areas impacted by the spill three, six and nine months after the accident and the corporation arranged a sonar survey around the spill zone in April and found no container-sized objects. Meanwhile, the coast guard still monitors for debris during overflights and notifies Danaos of anything believed to come from the Zim Kingston, ensuring it’s cleaned up.
But the fact remains that 105 of the ship’s containers are lying somewhere on the ocean floor, and many will eventually corrode and release their contents into the water, polluting the ocean and shorelines for months or even years to come. By then, the shipper may be long gone, or the debris harder to identify, making it hard to trace back to the responsible party.
Canada’s current legislation allows for three to six years of debris monitoring, but that “is not even scratching the surface for a spill of (the Zim Kingston’s) scale, calling for more regulations to hold shipping companies accountable. That’s one of the reasons why we’re losing so many – there’s very few consequences for the folks that are losing the materials overboard.
Lisa Marie Barron, the federal NDP critic for fisheries, oceans and the coast guard, echoed these sentiments. “I was very disheartened to hear that the containers were just lost at sea,” she said.
Canada’s container spill response system is disjointed, incohesive and slow-moving, with a disconnect between the federal response and what happens on the ground and in the communities directly impacted.
In the case of the Zim Kingston, the coast guard says little debris has washed up on Vancouver Island’s western beaches, and it has all been removed. But coastal communities are still seeing debris washing up on the shores as a result of the spill, and we’re going to continue to see the debris washing up for years to come.
All foreign materials affects habitat
Future of container spill management must involve thorough consultation with coastal First Nations, whose food sources can also be affected by ship debris.
Shipping companies do not have to publicly disclose the contents of spilled cargo – even if it includes hazardous materials, environmentalists say. There is no central database for logging lost container incidents, a 2014 report by the U.S. National Ocean Service found, and container damage and loss reports are kept confidential and rarely shared beyond vessel operators and maritime authorities.
Thsi happens for commercial and security reasons, but shippers must still declare container contents to maritime authorities. Canada follows the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships to ensure rules for foreign vessels are consistent.
But not having a manifest, a document that lists a vessel’s contents, means shipping companies often can’t be held accountable for spills. For example, this makes it difficult to know which debris belongs to the Zim Kingston, so appropriate fines are enforced. Shippers themselves sometimes don’t know what’s in their containers – even when it comes to potentially toxic contents. 32% of container incidents are caused by declarations with incorrect data, 27% by poor stowage and stacking and 17% by incorrect packaging. Environmentalists are calling for changes to international regulations to require vessels to publicize their manifests for every vessel. This would make it easier to locate sunken containers.
Rugged Coast Research Society, a Nanaimo-based charity has been doing complex detective work to track and remove items from the Zim Kingston’s lost containers, using weather maps and oceanographic data to identify high-density debris areas. This allows them to approximate where containers have opened up underwater. In November, they found more than 100 urinal mats along tiny stretches of beach. Spills trigger insurance penalties and throw vessels off schedule. Accidents can also cause delays that mean non-spilled goods expire or lose value. Shippers are the first ones with an interest in stopping spills. There’s really nothing but cost
But container spills don’t hurt companies enough financially for them to take “extreme measures” to avoid losing cargo.
Anybody that lives out here knows that that cleanup isn’t going to be done within the scope of weeks or months.
Canada’s federal government, provinces and coastal communities aren’t equipped to manage container spills. These groups lack the “salvage capability” to mitigate the long-term environmental impacts of marine debris, as well as the ability to track floating containers and retrieve sunken ones.
29 recommendations, including calls for increased spill response capacity, a comprehensive monitoring and management plan for marine debris, public access to vessels’ manifests, and greater accountability of responsible parties. A top priority would be seeing that marine debris management plan developed and some budget allocated to that.
April’s federal budget saw Canada commit more than $975 million to protecting a quarter of its marine and coastal land by 2025. The budget also proposed $2 billion over nine years to renew and expand the federal government’s Oceans Protection Plan. Provincially, BC’s Clean Coast, Clean Waters Initiative has put more than $24 million toward derelict vessel removal and shoreline cleanup for three years.
But these investments are peanuts: There is an astronomical amount of plastic in the ocean.