Cleaning up a hidden beach

Cleaning up a hidden beach
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby Now assistant editor
Published Aug. 13, 2003


Shell Canada is spending several hundred thousand dollars to clean up a secluded section of the inlet

It is a secluded little section of beach along the Burrard Inlet and, despite the natural beauty of the place, there is no true public access to the land.

But, this summer, Shell Canada is in the final stretch of a long- term cleanup campaign to remove industrial debris and other materials that landed on this beach during a 1970s-era sand slide that tumbled off the former refinery property.

Here, the view is tremendous. A noisy family of osprey nest on the nearby pilings. Great blue herons come home every night to one of the largest rookeries in the Lower Mainland, in a ravine about a kilometre away. The area is also rife with harbour seals, who sun themselves on the old log booms and pilings that dot the seascape in front of the former oil refinery lands.

The small beach, located between Berry Point and the Shell Canada loading dock, is not even owned by the oil company. But the firm is paying for the cleanup as part of a gesture of goodwill for the community, especially those few dog walkers, urban explorers and others who know how to find this hidden jewel of a beach.

Janet Annesley, a public affairs representative from Shell Canada's head office in Calgary, said the first cleanup was started in 1998 and, at that time, officials with Shell and the affected government and non-government agencies were satisfied with their work.

But, in 1999, a second sand slide covered up even more of the beach.

This year, as the natural effects of erosion gradually cast the sand into the water, more debris was found. So Shell made a decision to continue the cleanup.

"Last fall, we started to see barrels sticking up out of the sand, so we knew there was more debris here," said Dave Peters, the senior environmental consultant on the project and a former Shell employee.

And the cleanup is using every high-tech device in the book. The work started with a magnetometer scan of the entire beach to locate the largest pieces of metal. After that, ground-penetrating radar was used to pinpoint the shape and depth of each of the 52 targets found hidden underground.

A global positioning satellite (GPS) program was also used to track and record each of the target pieces of debris, Peters added.

Most of the debris is smaller material - pieces of chain and old railway ties and spikes - but about one-third of the pieces are larger, such as old metal barrels.

The actual cleanup work is being done by a small work crew, which uses gas-powered wheelbarrows, a front-end loader and whole lot of handwork.

The project is expected to cost "a couple hundred thousand dollars," said Annesley.

And while the public is legally entitled to visit the beach, Annesley reminds local residents that the surrounding neighbourhood is private property and, as long as the work is underway, anyone on the site must use caution.

"We just want the community to know that we are taking action," Annesley said. "This is evidence of our commitment to taking action and being responsible for a sustainable environment."

So what about the future of the property? The beach is and will remain public, but the fate of the surrounding Shell Canada properties - which include that ravine that is home to the great blue herons - still needs to be decided.

Annesley admits that local real estate agents are hoping to see the former refinery lands converted to housing, but that dream is far away in the future.

"I think Shell would have to plan very carefully and have an exhaustive review.

"It's a nice piece of property," Annesley said as she looked up the eastern slope of Capital Hill.

"But just because external people have their eyes on it doesn't mean that Shell has any plans. Shell doesn't have any plans. It's zoned industrial."