Coast Guard says small diesel spill has coloured Vancouver's harbour

A Canadian Coast Guard spokesman says a small diesel slick spotted in Vancouver’s False Creek and nearby English Bay isn’t large enough to attempt a cleanup.

Dan Bate says the colourful slick was reported Friday morning but crew members investigated and determined they wouldn’t be able to recover the thin sheen of fuel from the water.

Bate says diesel fuel evaporates off the water and is broken quickly by sun and wind.

He says a small amount of fuel can spread over a large area.

Because the spill was determined to be diesel, he says it’s unlikely to be related to large ships in the harbour.

The coast guard crew couldn’t find the origin of the spill, but Bate says it could have been caused in several ways, including someone refuelling a vessel.

After the news broke, Sven Biggs, campaigner with the environmental group Stand, formally know as ForestEthics, released the following statement:

"Just one year and a week after the last major oil spill in Vancouver we see another massive slick is spreading out across English Bay, near where Humpback Whales were recently spotted. While this spill is not as serious as last years bunker oil spill and no where near as dangerous as a spill of tar sands bitumen, which Kinder Morgan plans to ship through the port in over 400 oil tankers a year if their pipeline is approved, it is a good reminder that oil and water don’t mix.

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has issued a statement saying this latest spill will have no environmental impact but it is hard to look at the images of yet another slick right off Vancouver’s beaches and hear reports of a strong smell of oil from people in our waterfront parks and not be concerned for the state of our marine environment. To add insult to injury the DFO says they says they will not be investigating the source of the oil. Following last years spill we were promised better spill response, today's events cause me to question if anything has really changed.”

With files from The Canadian Press.