After the "Arrow" sank with half its oil cargo seeping into the Bay, many felt new leadership with different expertise would be needed. The task force looked to the military with its ability to coordinate large operations as well as its access to resources, equipment, scientists and thousands of personnel. On February 13, 1970 James Hornsby of Imperial Oil was replaced.
Mr. Stead and Mr. Weston officials at the Ministry of Transport discussed the need for an agreement to clean up oil with the help of the Armed Forces. According to Stead, it was at this time the idea for a task force arose.
By February 20, 1970, the three men to head a joint military-civilian task force were chosen. Dr. Patrick Duncan McTaggart-Cowan, executive director of the Science Council of Canada was chosen as Chair. Dr. H. Sheffer, the Vice-Chair of the Defense Research Board of Canada was named Deputy Chair. Capt. M. A. Martin, Deputy Chief of Staff, Maritime Command, had a vast knowledge in combined military operations that make use of land, sea, and air forces simultaneously, was in charge of logistics. They then established a main headquarters in Port Hawkesbury. The Armed Services and Department of Transport produced ships, seamen, divers, communications experts, vehicles, helicopters, and technicians, and more scientists were recruited from universities and government agencies.
"Operation Oil" as it was now called, faced a monumental challenge. From the outset, there was little assistance from scientific literature because no major oil spill of Bunker ' C ' fuel oil had been experienced in cold water before, nor had the problem of removing oil from a submerged tanker been encountered. By the time the task force took over, about 8,000 tons of oil had escaped and 190 of the 375 miles of shoreline had been contaminated. Once the problems were isolated and the options determined, clean up efforts were forced to continue through to the fall of 1970.
Since the sinking, reconnaissance revealed less oil leaking from the wreck, although the shore of Richmond County was completely polluted from Point Michaud to Lower River Inhabitants. Mr. Kerr of Atlantic Salvage discussed with Mr. Weston of Transport Canada, the possibility of blowing-off the hatch coamings should an offshore wind develop. Dr. Lefeuvre and Dr. Warner meanwhile, searched the Bay for the best areas to burn the oil by landing craft. They also discussed approaching the Department of Lands and Forests to locate-burial sites for mixtures of sand and oil and also considered using corexit on beaches to see how wave action could help.
At the management meeting, Capt. Svend Madsen of Esso International explained his proposal to remove oil from the wreck. He wanted a valve attached to the deck plate of a tank with a cutting tool inside. The deck plate could be cut and the bit withdrawn so the valve would shut-off. With the bit removed, a hose would be connected that leads to surface vessels which would receive the oil. Steam would go in the hose to maintain the oil's temperature as it passed through the cold waters, but the actual flow of oil at a temperature permitting it to move freely would be caused by differences in pressure at the top of the ship's tank, and at the bottom where the salt water would be left in. This process became known as the "hot tap" method because of its similarity to tapping a line of flowing liquid. The word hot has nothing to do with temperature but rather refers to tapping a pipe that is full and not empty.
Capt. Madsen went to the wreck with three divers from Atlantic Salvage who lifted the ullage ports to confirm that between 40-50,000 barrels of oil remained in the stern. Soundings from a fishing boat showed that the ship was near the edge of a 40-50 foot drop below Cerberus Rock, raising the possibility that the wreck might topple into deeper water. However, the divers did confirm the possibility of tapping into submerged tanks.
To remove the oil, the tug "Curb" was chartered and Canadian naval divers and the oil barge, "Irving Whale" was brought to the scene. Communication problems were fixed by cooperation between the Coast Guard; R.C.M.P. and marine radio, helped by an aircraft control tower brought to the area. In addition, the Emergency Measures Organization of Nova Scotia was able to find the myriad of odd items required by "Operation Oil." Despite delays and breakdowns the team was able to remove 1.3 million gallons of the remaining oil from the "Arrow" and deposit it in the tanks of the "Irving Whale." This left about 1,000 gallons, which were removed when the weather was warmer in October. It was impossible to drain the oil from every nook and cranny in the wreck and small amounts of oil still came to the surface when the temperature rose or when the wreck was disturbed by the action of the sea. The oil recovered from the stern was taken to the Imperial Oil Refinery in Dartmouth and readied for re-use. After leaving the refinery, the "Irving Whale" sank off the coast of Prince Edward Island.
Once the oil escaped into the sea, there were four ways it could disappear. First, it could have been physically removed or burnt. Secondly, the lighter fractions could evaporate or, thirdly oil could mix into a solution. These dissolved oils were initially highly toxic but were quickly dispersed by currents and diffusion and diluted to a nontoxic level. Fourthly, the remaining residue was subject to oxidation by chemical processes or by bacteria, known as biological degradation. The rate of degradation was generally slow but varied depending upon temperature, wind, wave action, and the degree of dispersion of the oil. These were the steps followed for the clean up of "Arrow" oil.
With most of the "Arrow's" cargo pumped out, "Operation Oil" had to concentrate on cleaning oil from tidal pools, lagoons, and beaches. Meanwhile, work on cleaning docks, wharves, jetties, boats, and fishing gear got underway. In an experiment, the crew of the "Pierre Helene" had a half-mile long net worth $25,000, cleaned in a makeshift "laundromat."
This experimental "net laundry" was designed with three main functions. First, a steaming section at 185-lb. pressure, heated congregated Bunker ' C ' oil to a point where it dripped from coated gear which was then mechanically cleaned with live steam. Secondly, there was a degreasing process that removed oil by immersing nets in a tank containing Cody's HC Degreaser and stove oil. The final purpose was accomplished in the flushing cylinder where warm water sprays formed an emulsion and residual effluent on the net was then flushed out. After the "Pierre Helene", the laundry successfully cleaned $200,000 worth of fishing gear for local fisherman.
Despite these successes, oil still covered sections of the North shore of Chedabucto Bay from Janvrin's Island to Petit-de-Grat, the south shore of the Bay eleven miles west of Canso and a fifteen mile section of the Mainland near the entrance of the Strait. Because of the lack of studies on removing oil from frigid environments, many clean up methods were tested requiring a lot of time and as a result, only 80 of the 190 miles of polluted shoreline were cleaned.
To combat the oil, a dam was constructed across Lennox Passage to prevent oil from entering the Bras d'Or Lakes. The dam required 40,000 cubic yards of quarried rock and was from 10-12 feet wide. Another barrier of sand and gravel hauled from Fox Island cut off the Canso Tickle from the waters of Canso Harbour. The task force also constructed effective fir branch and mesh booms to guard the Canso and Petit-de-Grat fish plants from "Arrow" oil.
The task force had to deal with oil ashore, the approaching oil, and the oil mixed with ice. It was realized that the ice would eventually melt returning oil to the water, but containing oil was still a problem. Many attempts were made to burn the thick oil emulsion, but it was found an unrealistic 1000°F was needed to cause combustion. An attempt to design a portable blast furnace to burn materials on the shore proved ineffective. Experiments to burn the oil on shore with "seabeads" were not successful, as it was impossible to sustain any ignition in the emulsion of oil and salt water. The Nova Scotia Minister of Lands and Forests suggested blue berry burning equipment but it too proved ineffective.
The operation lacked materials to absorb oil in order to be easily picked up, buried and burned-off. Straw blew-off oil slicks and had to be pressed into the emulsion and when ignited only the straw burned. The case was the same for napalm and kerosene. The only material that effectively absorbed oil was peat moss but it was not totally combustible and a lot of peat moss was needed to absorb oil.
The scientific coordination team conducted extensive research into the possibility of using chemicals for cleaning the shore. They found that different dispersants on the market had varying degrees of toxicity. Later research showed that some chemicals proposed a low toxicity but when mixed with Bunker ' C ', the combination became more toxic and no one wanted any damage to the Bay's ecosystem. Many felt the only remaining way to clean the shores and beaches was mechanical. Of the 140 miles of shoreline polluted, only 30 miles were attempted since only beaches were cleaned. Heavily oiled beaches were cleaned with bulldozers, front-end loaders and dump trucks. Slightly oiled beaches were cleaned with "slick-lickers" using shovels to place globs of oil in plastic bags to be carted to dumpsites. These methods were successful in cleaning beaches but due to oil on adjacent rocky shores, they were polluted two or three times during the summer.
Along the coast, the "slick-licker" developed by the Defense Research Establishment was one of Operation Oil's major success stories. Its designer received praise and two more of these "oilevators" were ordered to clean up oil slicks coralled in coves and inlets by booms. These machines were a series of conveyor belts that picked oil slicks off the water surface and deposited them in a collector tank. They were so light and compact that a catamaran was fitted with a "slick-licker" to use in shallow areas of the Bay. The "slick-licker" was also involved in getting Bunker ' C ' out of seaweed and eelgrass on many beaches. The seaweed and eelgrass were picked up by bent pitchforks and put onto the conveyor belts, where the mixtures were separated by a wringer like those found on old washing machines. These machines took hundreds of drums of oil off the surface of the water.
Soon bulldozers, front-end loaders and trucks were proven ecologically detrimental. The sheer weight and size of the equipment, mixed residual oil further into sediments, while the dozers displaced too much coastal sediments to allow beaches to recover and rolled oil in hard "asphalt balls", which collected rocks and sediments into insoluble compounds that still today remain along Chedabucto Bay. Testing by the scientific coordination team demonstrated that the most satisfactory way of removing solid to semi-solid oil from sandy and gravelly beaches is to pick it up manually. They found that small oil particles can be picked up by a spike or some similar device, large patches of oil could be easily removed with a shovel, or they can be rolled in a manner very similar to rolled turf grass, and then collected. They concluded that since the amount of oil present on sandy beaches is relatively small and concentrated at the high water level, its removal should be relatively easy and effective.
The easiest and most effective method was to leave certain coastlines alone to regenerate themselves. Such areas with high wave actions and high wave energies cleaned themselves and did so fairly quickly. Many of these coastal segments were along rocky, jagged shoreline that made clean up operations impossible, and dangerous. Testing in subsequent years found that heavily oiled areas with the most wave action were cleaner than most secluded caves, inlets, lagoons, or marshes that were lightly oiled.
