Environmenatl Management of CCG Operations
The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) is responsible for providing navigational aids throughout the province. These aids guide marine traffic through the dangerous waters that surround the island. Maintaining these aids is time consuming and requires many different divisions of the CCG to work together to provide a quality services while trying to protect the environment.Over the many years of lightstation operations in the Newfoundland region, a considerable amount of contamination has accumulated on these sites. In 1994 the CCG began cleaning up the lightstation sites by using bio remediation to degrade petroleum hydrocarbons and by removing other contaminants such as battery debris, metallic mercury, and metal/ wood debris.The CCG also has to maintain hundreds of buoys distributed around the province. In the past these buoys were powered by large lead acid batteries found inside the buoy, but the CCG has now converted all its floating buoys to solar powered units that require very little maintenance. Another aspect of these buoys that has been addressed by the CCG is the waste produced as a result of painting these buoys. Each year thousands of gallons of solvent waste are disposed of through qualified
Another Not only would these initiatives and others like it significantly reduce spending and fuel consumption, but it would also reduce the amount of greenhouse gases and other hazardous waste being produced by CCG operations. The recognition of contamination on CCG properties in 1992 lead to a series of site assessments that defined the extent of the contamination and the following year cleanup on some sites began. 2 Buoy DownsizingAnother change made to the marker buoys used by the CCG was the size of the buoys. The preferred method was to use bioremediation to lower the levels, but in some cases the material had to be physically removed from the site. 2 Mercury ContaminationWith the evolution of time came the evolution of construction materials and a methods, the only problem was that the long term effects of some materials were not known before they were used in the construction of buildings and structures. It was a very common practice that was not totally due to ignorance, but location of the sites also had bearing on the disposal of the debris in that they were isolated and the removal or the waste was not feasible. In 1995 control of the CCG shifted from Transport Canada to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The CCG presently operates and maintains 55 lightstations throughout the Newfoundland region, all of which were manned at one point in time. On most of the sites the bioremediation has been a success showing a reduction in TPH concentrations with many sites falling below the CCME V CWS acceptable levels for commercial sites. The CCG has implemented a solvent recycling system in the buoy maintenance facility. In 1991 the CCG began a solar initiative that seen a handful of non-road accessible sites converted from combustion powered to solar powered, the success of these sites lead to the solarization of all non-road accessible lightstations.
Common topics in this essay:
Environmental Issues,
Peninsula Bioremediation,
Health Safety,
Environmental Policy,
Guard CCG,
SYSTEM Throughout,
Soil Removal,
Contamination/Debris CCG,
Mercury Contamination,
Newfoundland Labrador,
solvent recycling,
solvent recycling system,
recycling system,
petroleum hydrocarbons,
mercury contamination,
solar powered,
performance paints,
ccg operations,
lead acid,
hazardous waste,
acceptable levels,
lead acid batteries,
buoy maintenance facility,
solar powered lighting,
department fisheries oceans,
|
Acceptance Essays
