Oil spill reaches shoreline of North Vancouver park

Crude oil from a ruptured Burnaby pipeline showed up on the shores of a North Vancouver park, as the cleanup on land and water continued Thursday and the federal environment minister said two investigations into the massive spill are underway.

John Baird said one will identify exactly what went wrong and whether any charges should be laid, and the other will look at making sure it doesn't happen again anywherein the country.

This comes as 11 homes in the area of therupturesit empty because oil still covers parts of the houses or their backyards.

As for the shoreline, B.C.'s Environment Minister Barry Penner said cleanup crews are doing their best to clear the mess at Cates Park, North Vancouver's largest seaside park, which features a six-kilometre waterfront trail winding past sandy beaches. The area is on the opposite shoreline of Burrard Inlet, where some oil from Tuesday's spill ended up.

The oil forced the closure of the popular Cates Park's beach.

"Most of the cleanup action will be focused on the shoreline. There's still a little bit of free-floating oil in the water, but not much," Penner said. "That's mostly being scooped up by booms being dragged by some boats that are out there."

A crew of 80was working on theshoreline and water cleanup, Penner said.

Hoping to reassure residents

Public health officials, meanwhile,toured the spill site in the residential Burnaby neighbourhoodin the afternoon Thursday, trying to reassure people the surroundings are safe.

"Many of the same substances that were in the air the day of the spill are substances we have present in our background levels in our outdoor air, and higher levels in our indoor air," said Dr. Ray Copes, medical director for environmental health at B.C. Centre of Disease Control.

Ken Hall, a professor of pollution control and waste management at the University of British Columbia, said the immediate concern for residents is the bad smells.

"I would be very worried for a while until the bad smells go away because those are the more volatile and more dangerous compounds," he said. "That being said, there's going to be contamination in soil for quite awhile. They're going to have to excavate those areas."

It was at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday when this all began, aftera road crew digging with an excavator on Inlet Drive near the intersection of the Barnet Highway and Hastings Street ruptured a Kinder Morgan pipeline carrying crude oil from a refinery to a refuelling facility on the harbour.

Oil shot up to 30 metres into the air for about 25 minutes, covering some nearby homes.

According to Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada, 234,000 litres of crude were spilled. An undetermined amount entered the storm sewer system and drained into the environmentally sensitive waters of Burrard Inlet.

About 50 homes were evacuated Tuesday afternoon, and some residents have been staying at hotels.

Meanwhile, the B.C. Ministry of Transportation reopened two lanes of traffic on Barnet Highway between Hastings Street to St. John Street. The other two lanes remain closed for pipeline repairs.