"The problem with Second Narrows is that, if you ground there on an outgoing high tide, you're going to be there for a while," Baker told The Province.
"If the ship survives, you're going to have to wait for the water to come back up, and big ships full of oil don't like that kind of stress. It's not inconceivable that the ship could rupture."
At the centre of the debate is the fact that the Westridge Terminal, east of the Second Narrows, has quietly become a major exporter of crude oil, coming in via the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta.
"Three of the four refineries have closed, so there's only a small amount of the capacity of the pipeline required to serve local refineries," said Baker.
"On top of that, they've further expanded it to 300,000 barrels a day, which is not an insignificant oil terminal."
The tankers are only allowed to sail loaded through the Second Narrows at high tide, and only during daylight, he added.
"If you were to look at places where you could put an oil port, that would be one of the least-desirable places you could possibly think of," he said.
"It's a bad place. It's very narrow, it's very shallow, it's got large tidal currents, you're going through at high tides. All these things are factors that point to, 'Boy, is this ever a bad idea.' "
Kinder Morgan says it loaded 65 tankers with crude oil from Westridge in 2009, compared to 42 in 2008, and expects a similar number this year.
The company also said in a statement that it wants to further expand the pipeline capacity from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels per day.
Port Metro Vancouver says it handled 3.9 million tonnes of crude in 2009, up by 77 per cent compared to the 2.2 million tonnes in 2008.
And the port is in the process of allowing an increase in the draft of oil tankers, from 12.5 m to 13.5 m, meaning they'll be able to leave the terminal more heavily loaded.
According to a risk-management report prepared for the port in 2008, allowable drafts could increase to 15 m.
Port officials said last year they'd like to eventually see the maximum size of vessels increased to "Suezmax," which means they can carry one million barrels of oil.
Those are some of the reasons Mayor Gregor Robertson has called for the oil-tanker safety information summit, with speakers including environmentalists, port officials, the B.C. Environment Ministry, Transport Canada, the Pacific Pilotage Authority, the Georgia Strait Alliance, Burrard Clean and the city's emergency-management department.
"We need to be assured that there's appropriate emergency response and that it's ready to roll in the event of a problem," said Robertson.
"Given all the concern over the Gulf oil spill, there's heightened concern about oil tankers and industry activity. We want to be sure that our harbour and local economy is not adversely impacted and any problems would be dealt with swiftly."
Robertson said that, until recently, he wasn't aware of the increase in crude-oil shipments from Vancouver.
"There's been a dramatic increase
and we need to understand the implications of that and what the next steps are," he said.
"It wasn't envisioned that Vancouver would be a major crude-oil export port, but we're getting into that territory."
He said the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, with the explosion and leaking BP oil-drilling rig, was a wake-up call.
"That's a case where the regulations were inadequate and not enforced and there's been a catastrophe, environmentally and economically," he added. "We don't want to ever be in a situation like that."
Depending on who you talk to, the doomsday scenario of a massive tanker spill is either unlikely or inevitable.
Chris Badger, Port Metro Vancouver's chief operating officer, says that oil tankers have been moving through the port for about 50 years.
He admits, however, that the number and quantity have increased over the past few years.
"We have very stringent procedures and requirements in place for the Second Narrows," Badger said.
"We have had a multi-year review of the Second Narrows with pilots, the tug industry, Transport Canada and [we] are looking at how we can improve safety. We've reconfigured navigational aids from where they were before."
Badger said that marine pilots used state-of-the-art simulators to allow oil-tanker bridge teams and tugs to simulate the movement of tankers through the Second Narrows.
Navigational systems, using buoys and lights, have been reconfigured
and a new "tethered-tug" approach is now used, he added.
"You have tugs tied up to a vessel as it moves through Second Narrows so that if it has an engine failure, or a rudder failure, it has no impact on the safe passage of that vessel," said Badger.
"The tugs basically move that vessel through the narrows as if it was under full power, with its rudder."
Badger said there have never been any engine or rudder failures in the Second Narrows.
But he admitted that, although ships and tugs have done live trials, they've only taken place in English Bay -- never in the Second Narrows channel.
Badger acknowledged the port is looking at increasing the capacity of ships.
"We've realized there's no reason why we couldn't increase the draft levels of those vessels," he said.
"If there is a requirement -- and I suspect there will be an interest to move to larger vessels in the future -- that would be a different matter. At that point, we'd be going through a full-blown tanker risk-analysis, because we'd be looking at a different type of vessel."
Scott Wright, south coast operations manager for Burrard Clean, which is responsible for mopping up oil spills in Burrard Inlet, said his company isn't concerned by the increase in oil-tanker traffic.
"From the cleanup perspective, we trust Transport Canada that all the safety regulations are there and in place and that they're making sure those are being followed," said Wright, who'll be there to answer questions at Monday's panel.
Wright said his company is certified to clean up spills of up to 60,000 barrels of oil under Canada Shipping Act regulations.
Wright said Burrard Clean does a "tabletop" oil-spill simulation exercise every three years, the most recent one last fall in Grenville Channel, near Prince Rupert.
The company hasn't done a Burrard Inlet exercise in the past eight years, he said.
Capt. Kevin Obermeyer, CEO of Pacific Pilotage Authority, said his group did a lot of work before making the decision to allow vessels to increase their draft from 12.5 m to 13.5 m while going through the Second Narrows.
"It's been a five-year process," Obermeyer said. "So there's been a lot of risk-assessments done."
The change began June 4, he said.
According to PPA documents, 12 Panamax and Aframax-class tankers will go through, with drafts of 13 m, before another six to 12 will go through at 13.5 m.
For Christianne Wilhelmson, executive director of the Georgia Strait Alliance, the increase in numbers and capacity of tankers is cause for alarm.
"We need to press the pause button," Wilhelmson said.
"We need to have a moratorium and have a really intense, detailed conversation with all of the players at the table to ask, as a community, whether this is a risk we want to take on."
Wilhelmson said that conventional wisdom says that only 15 per cent of crude oil gets recovered in a spill.
"In our region, that's more like five to 10 per cent, because of the currents," she said.
"They've just approved slowly increasing the draft of these vessels. I know there are future plans of doubling the pipeline and increasing the berth capacity."
And Baker, the oceanographer who's been blowing the whistle on the subject, says it's not a problem that's going to go away.
"Should the harbour be fouled, all shipments through the port would be interrupted for perhaps a considerable amount of time," he said.
"That traffic would be diverted to other U.S. west coast ports, perhaps for a long time. Tourism, transportation, real estate and many other sectors would also be affected."
And that's a threat that's taken seriously by Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer, who's leading the mayor's oil-tanker safety program.
"By the time oil hits the shoreline, it's our jurisdiction and by then it's too late to stop it," Reimer said.
"Ever since the BP spill, I wince whenever I hear the media say, 'Well, the government thought it was all fine.'
"Logically, if the risk is a ship carrying oil, the more ships and the bigger they are, the bigger the risk is." dinwood@theprovince.com
HOW MUCH OIL?
How much oil is being shipped through Burrard Inlet by tanker?
Kinder Morgan says the number of tankers it loaded with crude oil at Westridge Marine Terminal jumped from 42 in 2008 to 65 in 2009, and it expects a similar number this year.
The company wants to expand the capacity of the incoming Trans Mountain pipeline from A lberta from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels per day.
Port Metro Vancouver announced in June 2009 that Aframax-sized tankers plying the inlet would be allowed to increase their loads in 2010 by 10,000 tonnes.
