'It's orca season': Grounded barge in Campbell River raises concerns for marine life

A barge filled with wood chips that was intentionally grounded north of Campbell River, B.C., now appears to be running into more difficulties.

The coast guard says it received a report on March 22 that the tug Pacific Chief had intentionally grounded a barge containing 5,500 yards of hog fuel in Duncan Bay because the cargo had shifted.

The barge’s owner, Sentry Marine Towing, is the same company that owns a barge that ran aground in Vancouver's English Bay in November of last year after coming loose in a storm. That barge still sits along the Vancouver shoreline.

A crane was brought in to Campbell River to rebalance the load but there are fears the ocean waves are submerging the contents.

“[What] it would probably end up doing is making a nice big mess along the coastline at the same time and then find its way in through the marina through all the boats and it would sit here for quite some time until it eventually sunk – then it smothers the bottom,” says Dean Parsonage, owner of 50 North Adventures, a fishing charter and whale-watching operator out of Campbell River.

A crane was brought in to Campbell River to rebalance the load but there are fears the ocean waves are submerging the barge. (CTV News)

Parsonage says he doesn’t know exactly what happened to cause the load to shift.

“If you overload something you potentially open yourself up to all sorts of issues especially if there is a shift of cargo, it’s going to make a hell of a difference to the stability of that barge," he says.

"I don’t know if it was overloaded for sure but it’s been run aground, that’s the bottom line."

A crane was brought in to Campbell River to rebalance the load but there are fears the ocean waves are submerging the barge. (CTV News)

The barge is within sight of a former railcar ferry containing fuel that grounded in February and still remains in place. Parsonage says he is worried about the effects such issues are having on marine life.

“The last couple of weeks, especially at this time of year it’s orca season," he says. "The transient orca use this area as a corridor. Yesterday alone we had I think it was nine orcas transiting through Discovery Passage up and down the entire day. There was over 100 Pacific white-sided dolphins playing through here, a couple of weeks ago we had 30 orca transiting through here so this is their area."

When contacted for comment, an employee for Sentry Marine Towing said the company’s owner wouldn’t be available for several days but he did say the barge “was being removed.”