The Shipping News
I think it’s great that BC’s own Pam Anderson wants to raise awareness about oil tankers on our coast. She says, “When I heard tankers were going to be coming into Vancouver harbour, I said ‘No Tanks’!” And then there’s a lovely video on YouTube on a great beach, and she is a lovely beach babe, for sure.
I am not quite so charmed when the BC rep on the Council of Canadians says we shouldn’t allow oil tankers to “start” coming into Vancouver. It’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it, to have to point out that oil-bearing tankers have been plying those waters down south for – um, sorry – 103 years.
There’s a local history guy from Port Moody who has photos dating way back, you know, like train spotters or plane spotters, they are totally into this tanker traffic stuff.
And the pipeline from Edmonchuck to Burrard Inlet, built in 1953, is there, too. There have been some incidents with the Kinder Morgan pipeline: oil gushing all over a Vancouver neighbourhood because a developer forgot one should “Dial before you dig!” I doubt people would be against building new subdivisions and basements, right? They should rather be in favour of calling someone to find out where the 50-year-old pipeline is located – exac-i-tackily.
And there was a storage tank rupture, which is harsh, I agree. Buttons saying “No storage tanks, no problem” wouldn’t get that far, though, would they? Because we have them here, for gas, for cars and also for boats.
There have also been sea-faring tankers, chemical, oil and otherwise, in and out of Kitamaat, for some time. A Fisheries and Oceans Canada study from 2007 looks at the contamination issues on northcoast waters. In addition to oil tankers to/from Kitimat, there are barges carrying heating oil and diesel to Haida Gwaii and other coastal communities without road access, communities off the BC Hydro grid.
Turns out that the main danger to our northcoast is not catastrophic spills, but rather what they call chronic oiling. Catastrophic is like a car crash, chronic is like a dull, constant pain. Chronic oiling comes from having boats and ships on the water. Starting up, slowing down, engines idling, sea water washing across the lower decks or older wooden boats with coatings that gradually decay and peel off, like that.
So, recently, while it was warmer, some people had a protest against tankers down on the Vancouver waterfront by hosting -- I am sorry to say this -- a floatilla. Yeah. Also in the summer of 2010, two young women were advocating a legal ban on oil tankers in BC’s water, by pledging to bicycle from Victoria to Kitimat.
Hrrm, I thought, that involves some chronic oiling on the 20-hour ferry ride from Port Hardy to Rupert. Looking at their map of their journey, they did not go north of Hardy, so I thought no ferry was needed, but I was wrong! They merrily island-hopped up-island, taking this ferry and that, including to an island that draws people “from all over the world” to study Orcas.
I feel in my heart these whale-lovers must have walked to that place, and without the use of aluminum-packed dried dinners.
John Hunter, a North Vancouver energy consultant, says, “A complete ban on oil tankers leaving Vancouver Harbour? If that’s the case, I hope Anderson plans to grow her own vegetables when she’s visiting the island. Vancouver Island relies on ocean-going shipments for 100 per cent of its liquid fuels. No tankers would also mean no ferry sailings, no produce delivery and no fuel at gas stations.”
And that’s the shipping news.