Keep the Ban on Oil Tanker Traffic
BC’s ‘inland’ waters include Dixon Strait, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. A ban on oil tanker traffic through the inland passage has existed for 40 years, since 1972.
Maintaining this federal moratorium will help protect our oceans, coastline and wildlife from devastating oil spills. Although eight Canadian prime ministers have upheld the moratorium, the B.C. Liberal government is presently lobbying the federal Conservative government to revoke the ban.
If 320 tankers a year were to travel through the unpredictable waters of Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound and the Douglas Channel leading to Kitimat, industry averages indicate that a “moderate” spill of more than 159,000 litres will occur every two to three years. A “major” spill of more than 1,590,000 litres is likely to occur every six to seven years. When the U.S. tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989 it spilled 41 million litres of oil—one-sixth of the oil it carried—and polluted 2,000 kilometres of coastline. Between 100,000 - 250,000 seabirds were killed, along with almost 3,000 sea otters, 250 bald eagles, 300 harbour seals and 22 killer whales from a pod of about 30.
This orca pod has not reproduced since and with 7 only individuals remaining is destined for extirpation. Pink salmon also undeerwent a massive decline in numbers in Prince William Sound.
Tankers in BC would travel through grey whale migratory routes, through feeding grounds for humpback and orca whales, and past more than 600 salmon-spawning rivers. A single oil spill could devastate the coastal communities and First Nations that rely on tourism and fishing, equaling or exceeding the Exxon Valdez disaster.
It is time to strengthen the oil tanker moratorium and turn it from policy into law.
