Western Canada Marine Response Corporation crews and ships spent part of Thursday’s training near Sidney’s Tulista Park. The exercise focused on releasing oil from the contaminated beaches into the water for easier recovery. (Wolf Depner/Press team)

These mini-fountains are fed with seawater and help to flush any oil spilled on a beach back into the water, where the material is more easily recoverable. The Western Canada Marine Response Corporation held a training exercise in Sidney, just off the Tulista Park boat launch. (Wolf Depner/Press team)

Crews and ships from the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation station – based on the Saanich Peninsula – trained last week on removing oil from beaches.

Shore flush training held on the beach between the Anacortes ferry terminal and the Tulista Park boat launch saw crews deploy shore booms in the shape of rectangles with the beach forming one of sides. On the beach itself, they placed a long blue pipe parallel to the shore with pipes drawing water from the ocean into the blue pipe.

The pipe then distributed the water to the beach through holes in its top. If oil had indeed spilled onto the beach, the water flowing from the pipe would then push any material back into the water, where the skimmer would then pick up the material from the surface of the water contained by the dam.

“If you get oil on the beach, you want to get it off the beach, put it back in the water,” said Trevor Davis, base manager for the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation in Sidney, as he watched exercise from the footpath. the length of the beach. “It sounds weird, but we can pick it up from the water. If it’s on the beach, it starts going down (into the sand). We don’t like that.

Flushing the oil from the beach and putting it back in the water accomplishes two things, Davis said. “It keeps the oil from going down and puts it in the water, where we can get it back from.”

Thursday’s exercise followed an exercise last December on the water between and around Beacon Wharf and Sidney Pier as members of Royal Canadian Navy Search and Rescue Station 36 (Saanich Unit) received a training on coastal protection strategies.

Western Canada Marine Response Corporation is the Transport Canada certified marine spill response organization for Canada’s west coast. Its mandate under the Canada Shipping Act is to be prepared to respond to oil spills at sea along the British Columbia coastline and to mitigate the impacts of spills, including the protection wildlife, economic and environmental sensitivities, and stakeholder and member safety. public.

The local station operates in North Saanich from a warehouse on Vancouver Airport Authority grounds with ships anchored in Sidney’s Van Isle Marina.

A total of three ships (including two landing craft) and approximately two dozen crew members participated in the training.

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Environmentoil and gasSaanich Peninsula