by Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Sep 17/97) - Approximately 15,000 oil spills occur every year in Canadian waters.

Though many spills are small, if they are not cleaned up they could seriously harm vegetation and habitat in the area.

Last Wednesday, Al Fraser, assistant training officer with the Canadian Coast Guard was in Rankin Inlet teaching a group of NWT Power Corp. employees how to handle an oil spill. "It was a really, really good group. This was little unique. Most of them are from different communities and they worked very well together," said Fraser, following a demonstration of a contaminant containment procedure at a local dock.

"I notice that up here in the North the people seem to show camaraderie. You steer them on a course and away they go with very little actual supervision or direction needed. You lay out the parameters and they seem to fit together and make it work."

And make it work they did.

They began by dragging a floating containment boom into the water, anchoring it in place and finally forming a square to contain the hypothetical spill.

The particular boom the men were working with is used for containing oils -- like p-50 and lighter oils which have a specific gravity above that of water -- most commonly found in the NWT.

Knowing how to deal with a spill is something every company and community should learn, said Fraser because it can happen at any time.

"There have been a few spills in a few incidents. Our fellows in Hay River were ready -- I believe it was Tuktoyaktuk where that barge sank -- they went up and as soon as the ice cleared they had their boom out just in case anything was spilling at that time," he said.

Fraser has been touring the Eastern Arctic this summer, visiting Clyde River, Cape Dorset, Arctic Bay, Iqaluit, Coral Harbour and now Rankin Inlet.

Though booming is an important part of the course he's teaching, students have many other things to learn.

They begin with a little bit of theory, examining oil spill behavior and talking about what happens when the oil is spilled and how it changes with wind and currents.

Recovery is another important aspect of the course.

"We have what we call a skimmer. What happens is we got a hydraulic power pack and there's two drums that rotate right through the oil spill on top of the water and the water itself just right through the mixture," said Fraser.

"It likes the oil, but it doesn't like the water. Water won't stick on it but the oil will. It gets stuck on this drum and as it rotates around it hits these little scrapers. The oil's scraped off and funnelled down a little channel into a reservoir and it's pumped off into a portable tank."

To ensure companies or local agencies are ready for the next oil spill, container packs are being installed in various communities throughout the North.

Container packs currently exist in Rankin Inlet, Coral Harbour, Cape Dorset, Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay.

Each pack consists of a variety of tools including an oil containment boom, six tow lines, six anchors, 16-foot aluminium boat with a 25-hp outboard motor, 120 pairs of work gloves, 20 safety glasses, 20 pairs of sunglasses and two five gallon gas cans.

The estimated cost of one complete Arctic Containment Pack is about $103,000.