“Canada’s only operational submarine just sank a U.S. warship”, noted the National Post. A more apt headline would have been: “Canadian submarine part of needless war game treats ocean as garbage dump”. While no one is discussing the ecological toll of Mark Carney’s $100 billion submarine purchase, its impact will be significant.
Recently HMCS Corner Brook fired the torpedo that sank a decommissioned US warship off Hawaii. In response to a similar live fire exercise of a decommissioned warship near Vancouver Island, Living Oceans spokesperson Jennifer Lash complained that they are “treating the ocean like a garbage dump. No one even knows what kind of marine life there is down there.”
HMCS Corner Brook’s live-fire targeting was part of the month-long US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war game. The US-led war game targeting China is ecologically destructive. In a petition calling on Ottawa to withdraw from RIMPAC 2020 a collection of anti-war groups noted:
“Every two years RIMPAC has an incredibly detrimental effect on marine species and on the environment. Marine wildlife is directly affected during RIMPAC; sonar use, as well as gun and missile fire, have all been found to negatively affect marine wildlife in the area surrounding exercises. Decommissioned naval ships are towed out to sea to be shot at and sunk during exercises where they crush deep-sea corals. Strandings of whales have been reported during previous RIMPAC events and have been found to be caused by the United States Navy’s use of sonar. There is no way to know the true numbers of impacted marine wildlife, as sonar is proven to affect marine wildlife through thousands of square miles of ocean.
“The island and coastal environment is also harmed. Multiple exercises have resulted in damaging effects on the Hawaiian Islands, including a devastating bush fire during RIMPAC 2018 that was ignited by flares released during an exercise.”
Submarine torpedo-testing has released substantial toxic material at Canadian Forces Maritime and Experimental Test Ranges (CFMETR) on the east side of Vancouver Island. According to an internal assessment of CFMETR, 93,000 kilometres of copper wire and 2,200 tons of lead, lithium batteries and other toxic materials were dumped at Nanoose Bay between 1965 and 1995. The torpedo-testing site has mostly been used by US nuclear-powered and nuclear weapons-capable submarines. US submarines firing torpedoes at CFMETR — the soft seabed allows them to retrieve expensive torpedoes — elicited significant controversy in the late 1990s. Having endorsed Nuclear Weapons Free legislation, BC’s NDP government sought a review of Nanoose Bay’s environmental impacts. In response Ottawa expropriated CFMETR’s land in the first hostile expropriation of provincial property since the early 20th century (the Federal Court of Canada ultimately ruled against the federal government).
Despite controversy over the ecological impact of submarines in the past, I have yet to see any discussion of the ecological toll of Carney’s plan to buy a dozen new submarines. But manufacturing submarines releases heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons and other hazardous materials into surrounding soils and waterways. So does routine submarine painting and maintenance. Construction also emits substantial fossil fuels. The German firm Ottawa selected to produce Canada’s submarines, Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, is a major GHG emitter.
The diesel-electric submarines Canada selected will consume significant amounts of oil.
Submarines also emit low-frequency active and passive sonar, which often interferes with mammal communication. Subs regularly kill whales and other sea life.
Alongside direct ecological impacts, the submarine purchase will drain public resources from more sustainable measures. At $100 billion over their lifecycle, the cost of Carney’s submarines will cover Environment and Climate Change Canada’s budget for 58 years. As he’s drastically increased war spending, Carney has slashed billions of dollars from Environment Canada’s budget, tree planting, home retrofits and transit. In the last budget Carney reduced the 10-year Canada Public Transit Fund from $30 billion to $25 billion.
Instead of buying ecologically destructive submarines we should be building more subways.
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