Gabriola looks out on the Entrance Island lighthouse. After reading the other day that this lighthouse will lose its keeper, I started reading up on what that might mean to boaters and others. Here’s what the Georgia Straight Alliance says about lighthouse de-staffing:

Lightkeepers provide a number of vital services to mariners and aviators that cannot be effectively duplicated by automated devices. Lightkeepers provide accurate and timely weather updates, help mariners with mechanical troubles, provide support to people forced to seek shelter from foul weather, and assist in many search and rescue operations. Many of our commercial fishing members contact lightkeepers for on-site weather information to help guide them in making important decisions when they are travelling to and from the fishing grounds. According to the head of the BC lightkeepers’ union, records from 30 of BC’s lightstations show that between 1986 and 1991 keepers answered public requests for information or assistance (including emergency response) a total of 32,042 times.

Automated equipment cannot provide the level of certainty that staff can offer. While the Coast Guard commissioner has claimed publicly that there has not been a single instance of documented failure over past 10 years and the Regional Manager has claimed a 99.9% reliability record, statistics from the lightkeepers’ union show that automated signals have a failure rate from 20 percent to 100 percent of the time. This difference in numbers, of course, results because the only “official” failure, as far as Coast Guard is concerned, is one that results in the issuance of a notice to shipping – and lightkeepers have done such a good job of watching for problems and repairing equipment before any notice to shipping is required, that they have, in a sense, been their own worst enemy. [continue]

I think it makes sense to keep our lighthouses staffed. What do you think?

I’m wondering which bureaucrats made the decision to remove staff from lighthouses, anyway. Who are they, and what do they do? Could we save money by automating their jobs instead?

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