Canine Oil Detection (K9-SCAT) following 2015 Releases from the T/V Arrow Wreck

Abstract The T/V Arrow sank in 1970, spilling Bunker C fuel oil into Chedabucto Bay, Nova Scotia. In the summer and fall of 2015, residual oil leaked from the sunken vessel and re-oiled shorelines in the Bay. A K9-SCAT field study, funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), was conducted in June 2016 to assess the capability of detection canines to locate stranded oil following the new releases. The canine detected small amounts of weathered surface oil that were barely visible, and in some cases, not visible, to the SCAT-trained observers, as well as subsurface oil on mixed- and coarse-sediment beaches. The average speed of a survey, in terms of the length of shoreline covered, varied depending on the shore type and the width of the survey band. The most challenging site was a steep bedrock shoreline with an alongshore survey rate of 0.2 linear km/hour. Typical alongshore coverage rates for the wide, mixed sediment were in the range 0.7 to 1.2 linear km/hour, and for both straight, wide sand...