Combat engineers say massive Kootenay exercise hugely successful despite incident on Columbia River
By Kyra Hoggan
Over 150 Canadian and US battle engineers are pulling out of Trail and Castlegar after Wednesday’s traditional close-of-exercise pig roast, according to Canadian Forces Major Dan Thomas, at the end of EXERCISE KOOTENAY CASTOR, a joint training exercise with combat engineers from Washington and Trail, Chilliwack and Vancouver.
Thomas said the two-week exercise was “hugely successful”, and that he hopes an incident on the Lower Arrow Lake at around noon on Monday doesn’t mar the memory of an otherwise brilliantly-planned, neatly-executed and significantly productive event.
“The boat involved was one of three similar bridging boats moving a raft on Lower Arrow Lake,” Thomas said. “It started taking on water, forcing the two soldiers on board to bail out – a safety boat quickly rescued them with no injury.”
He said they’re still investigating why the craft was taking on water – the cause remains, at this time, unknown.
“These are very reliable, robust, powerful craft. This type of occurrence is very unusual,” he added, explaining one of the two remaining bridging boats towed the floundering craft to Syringa’s easternmost boat launch, where a containment boom and absorbent pads were immediately deployed.
“It sat there in shallow water until we arranged a recovery operation,” he said, adding the boat was pulled from the water on Tuesday. “If we had been too hasty, we could have worsened any environmental impact.”
As it stands, he said, the environmental impact was negligible – the hydraulic fluid that leaked was biodegradable vegetable oil, the anti-freeze was also bio-degradable, and the only substance of concern (low-sulfur diesel fuel), was mostly contained.
“We lost well below 10 litres, which we cleaned up immediately,” he said. “Throughout the episode, we paid close attention to any evidence of fluids. We also hired an environmental recovery company that specializes in these matters, so as to leave nothing to chance.
“We also worked in close coordination with provincial, federal and other authorities – we were inspected by the provincial environment ministry, they observed our precautions and they went away satisfied.”
He said he’s completely confident that there is no environmental impact as a result of the incident.
“I hope this doesn’t overshadow the exercise – It was hugely successful, soldiers were able to complete important training and were able to share their skills and knowledge. It was a very ambitious exercise.
“One neat aspect was that Canadian and American troops were completely integrated.”
He said the area presented itself beautifully to the visiting combat engineer corps.
“All the soldiers are very, very grateful for the patience and support shown by Kootenay residents, employers of reservists, and the organizations controlling the lands and waterways, including all levels of government and various private-sector organizations.
“And we’d like to say thanks for the obvious welcome (Kootenay folks) gave to the soldiers – my photographer (because of his uniform) was given a free Slurpee at the 7-11. He said he’d never, ever experienced that where he’s from, in Eastern Canada.”
He said residents seemed to enjoy watching everything from explosions to assault boat practices, and he appreciates how respectful they were about doing so from a safe distance.
“Some of that was pretty cool stuff to watch,” he said. “It’s with some regret that I’m leaving.”
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