This page contains annotated news stories and press releases with commentary about land reform and the democratic process in British Columbia. Our comments are shown in red.
Letter: Pipeline dangers outweigh benefits
Jul 19, 2007
By Charles Campbell
Re: "Billions out the window?" July 17.
Your article seems to confuse short-term booms with long-term economic prosperity, and too quickly dismisses the devastating environmental and economic impact of an oil spill along our North Coast.
The Gateway pipeline proposal is the first in a long line of projects that would see oil tankers plying our coastal waters and up a narrow 140-kilometre fjord to Kitimat.
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This area is the heartland of a $1.7-billion fishing industry that employs more than 16,000 people. Approximately 500,000 cruise ship passengers a year pass the area on their way to Prince Rupert and Alaska. It is the home to grey whale migratory routes and the feeding grounds for orca and humpback whales.
The tankers' routes would also pass the heart of the kermode (spirit) bear range on Gribbell and Princess Royal Islands.
The area is also called the graveyard of the Pacific. It is the resting place of the Queen of the North.
It is routinely subjected to hurricane-force winds, five-metre tides and eight-metre waves. It is littered with rock pinnacles and reefs.
An oil spill in this area would be a matter of when, not if, and would be impossible to clean up. The tanker industry considers a 15 per cent cleanup a success in ideal conditions.
After the construction phase boom the Enbridge Gateway Project promises only 70 full-time permanent jobs in B.C. It also promises a disaster from which our existing coastal economy and ecology could never recover.
Charles Campbell,
communications co-ordinator,
Dogwood Initiative,
Victoria.
Your article seems to confuse short-term booms with long-term economic prosperity, and too quickly dismisses the devastating environmental and economic impact of an oil spill along our North Coast.
The Gateway pipeline proposal is the first in a long line of projects that would see oil tankers plying our coastal waters and up a narrow 140-kilometre fjord to Kitimat.
Email to a friendEmail to a friendPrinter friendlyPrinter friendly
Font:
This area is the heartland of a $1.7-billion fishing industry that employs more than 16,000 people. Approximately 500,000 cruise ship passengers a year pass the area on their way to Prince Rupert and Alaska. It is the home to grey whale migratory routes and the feeding grounds for orca and humpback whales.
The tankers' routes would also pass the heart of the kermode (spirit) bear range on Gribbell and Princess Royal Islands.
The area is also called the graveyard of the Pacific. It is the resting place of the Queen of the North.
It is routinely subjected to hurricane-force winds, five-metre tides and eight-metre waves. It is littered with rock pinnacles and reefs.
An oil spill in this area would be a matter of when, not if, and would be impossible to clean up. The tanker industry considers a 15 per cent cleanup a success in ideal conditions.
After the construction phase boom the Enbridge Gateway Project promises only 70 full-time permanent jobs in B.C. It also promises a disaster from which our existing coastal economy and ecology could never recover.
Charles Campbell,
communications co-ordinator,
Dogwood Initiative,
Victoria.
