Is this the same Ed Martin?

Two equipment failures found in Nfld. oil spill

Updated Sat. Nov. 27 2004 5:54 PM ET

Canadian Press

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. -- Two separate pieces of equipment malfunctioned last weekend, allowing oil to leak into the Atlantic for up to five hours at Petro-Canada's Terra Nova offshore project, company officials said Friday.

The company said it was the strong smell of petroleum that alerted crew members to the problem.

But by then 170,000 litres of oil had already leaked into the ocean -- the largest spill in East Coast offshore history.

Petro-Canada said it has completed its own investigation and has already put changes in place to prevent any further incidents.

"We've conducted a thorough review of the systems involved, the processes in place and the sequence of events leading up to the spill,'' Gordon Carrick, vice-president of East Coast operations for Petro-Canada, said Friday.

First there was a failure in the chemical injection system that delivers chemicals to separate oil and water brought up from the ocean floor. The oil, which was not properly separated from the water, was discharged back into the ocean.

Secondly, a sensor that should have detected the imbalance failed to shut off the flow.

"As a result of our findings we are taking a number of immediate corrective actions, including equipment upgrades and process improvements,'' he said.

The investigation does not indicate any human error in the spill, Carrick said.

Petro-Canada will submit the preliminary report to the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board, the joint federal-provincial body that regulates the industry.

The board is also conducting its own investigation.

But one critic said the real problem is the lack of proper monitoring of the industry by the board or anyone else.

The offshore industry essentially monitors itself, said Bill Montevecchi, an expert in seabirds at Memorial University in St. John's, Nfld.

The board is biased toward the industry and independent observers, including himself, have been turned away from these massive offshore rigs, he said.

Terra Nova, located 350 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland, is near large colonies of dovekies, kittiwakes and thick-billed murres, he said.

"Birds are dying. There's no doubt,'' Montevecchi said.

As of Friday, nine seabirds had been recovered. Two died.

Experts say hundreds or even thousands more will never be found.

There is now the equivalent of about five barrels of oil left on the surface of the water, spread over 20 square kilometres.

It is rapidly breaking up and is now about 67 kilometres southeast of Terra Nova, said Ed Martin, incident commander for Petro-Canada.

"It's not a slick any more. It's really a sheen, a very thin film on top of the water,'' Martin said.

And it's now too thin to recover from the water. Martin estimated less than five per cent of the oil was recovered.

A storm was expected in the area Friday night and containment and recovery efforts were to be suspended.

"There's a very high probability that there will be very little or nothing left following this storm,'' Martin said.

"We will continue to recover everything we possibly can but at the point in time when we know there's nothing there, we are planning to start to demobilize.''