Albertans seem mystified by concerns about risks posed by a pipeline to the sea from their landlocked prairie bitumen mines, but that's because they don't grasp the intense relationship British Columbians have with their wild coast.
It's stunningly beautiful. It's inhabited by rare and astonishing species, from the white Kermode "spirit" bear to the iconic sea otter, and from glass sponges surviving from the Jurassic to highly evolved killer whales, porpoises and other cetaceans. It's inherent to the province's identity.
And it's a major driver in B.C.'s $7-billion-a-year tourist industry, which employs more than 127,000 people. So the relationship is financial as well as esthetic.
Recent polls show that although there appears to be majority support for the pro-posed $5.5-billion Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project, which would move 190 million barrels a year of diluted bitumen to upgraders in Asia, things aren't always exactly what they seem to be.
One Mustel Group poll commissioned by NDP MP Kennedy Stewart found that while 50.1 per cent of its respondents favoured the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, 41.7 per cent were opposed.
Committed Conservative and Liberal voters, the parties of business, supported the project by a wide margin - 67 to 22 for Tories, 64-34 for Grits - while NDP supporters were opposed 58-34 and Greens were predict-ably opposed 72-24.
The Mustel poll echoed earlier findings by an Ipsos Reid poll commissioned by Enbridge last December. It reported 48 per cent in favour and 32 per cent opposed.
Yet taken together, these two polls also show something else. Support for the pipeline has been almost static within the margin of error. Opposition to the pipeline has spiked upward by almost 10 per cent over the earlier Ipsos Reid poll.
Meanwhile, a third poll, commissioned from Justason Market Intelligence by environmental groups, zeroed in on reaction to supertankers required to transit more than 200 kilometres of B.C.'s Inside Passage to move bitumen to Asia.
They would share a passage which at some points narrows to just over a kilometre in navigable width with huge liquid natural gas carriers, ferries, cruise ships, container ships, tow boats and barges and war-ships. At peak, this marine traffic already averages about 650 vessels a month.
A single bitumen carrier would cover an area equal to that of the Vancouver city blocks bounded by Howe, Rob-son, Thurlow and West Georgia. One ship, carrying about two million barrels, would be the size of three football fields.
These supertankers would make 225 trips a year through a tight passage used by 5,552 other vessels.
British Columbians know their coast. When the Justa-son pollsters asked specifically about supertankers transiting Inside Passage waters off the Great Bear Rainforest, support fell to 22 per cent and opposition spiked to 66 per cent, with 50 per cent registering strong opposition.
Expect this opposition to solidify as the likely consequences of a major tanker accident emerge from the risk assessments filed with the National Energy Board.
For example, the application includes one scenario that assesses the environmental risk of a 216,000-barrel spill of bitumen into Wright Sound, where the B.C. ferry Queen of the North sank in 2006.
It assumes that the spill would happen in summer. Seventy-six per cent of the heavy oil would "strand" along 240 kilometres of shoreline on Fin Island, Far-rant Island, Gil Island, around Hartley Bay, Cridge Passage, Lewis Passage, Squally Channel, Grenville Channel, Whale Channel, Campania Island and Caamaño Sound.
"Since the diluted bitumen does not readily evaporate, and may be moved around by the tide, it should be assumed that the entire intertidal zone would be oiled along the shore-line exposed to the spill. The stranded diluted bitumen can be expected to coat rocks, rock-weed, and sessile invertebrates in the affected area, and some of the diluted bitumen may find its way deeper into gravel or rocky intertidal substrates."
Most at risk would be sea otters, Steller sea lions, harbour porpoises, mink, bald eagles, marbled murrelets, spotted sandpipers, surf scoters - and, of course, mussels, clams, oysters, crabs and other crustaceans, which would be contaminated with carcinogenic compounds for years afterward.
British Columbians, being familiar with North Coast weather conditions where hurricane-force winds and 30-metre seas are not uncommon, will immediately wonder why the risk assessment assumes optimum summer conditions for the spill rather than the middle of a winter howler.
Pipeline proponents point out that a large spill from tanker transit is only likely to occur once every 250 years. Mind you, the unsinkable Titanic sank only once and we're still talking about it in hushed tones 100 years later.
Original Article
Source: vancouver sun
Author: Stephen Hume
It's stunningly beautiful. It's inhabited by rare and astonishing species, from the white Kermode "spirit" bear to the iconic sea otter, and from glass sponges surviving from the Jurassic to highly evolved killer whales, porpoises and other cetaceans. It's inherent to the province's identity.
And it's a major driver in B.C.'s $7-billion-a-year tourist industry, which employs more than 127,000 people. So the relationship is financial as well as esthetic.
Recent polls show that although there appears to be majority support for the pro-posed $5.5-billion Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project, which would move 190 million barrels a year of diluted bitumen to upgraders in Asia, things aren't always exactly what they seem to be.
One Mustel Group poll commissioned by NDP MP Kennedy Stewart found that while 50.1 per cent of its respondents favoured the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, 41.7 per cent were opposed.
Committed Conservative and Liberal voters, the parties of business, supported the project by a wide margin - 67 to 22 for Tories, 64-34 for Grits - while NDP supporters were opposed 58-34 and Greens were predict-ably opposed 72-24.
The Mustel poll echoed earlier findings by an Ipsos Reid poll commissioned by Enbridge last December. It reported 48 per cent in favour and 32 per cent opposed.
Yet taken together, these two polls also show something else. Support for the pipeline has been almost static within the margin of error. Opposition to the pipeline has spiked upward by almost 10 per cent over the earlier Ipsos Reid poll.
Meanwhile, a third poll, commissioned from Justason Market Intelligence by environmental groups, zeroed in on reaction to supertankers required to transit more than 200 kilometres of B.C.'s Inside Passage to move bitumen to Asia.
They would share a passage which at some points narrows to just over a kilometre in navigable width with huge liquid natural gas carriers, ferries, cruise ships, container ships, tow boats and barges and war-ships. At peak, this marine traffic already averages about 650 vessels a month.
A single bitumen carrier would cover an area equal to that of the Vancouver city blocks bounded by Howe, Rob-son, Thurlow and West Georgia. One ship, carrying about two million barrels, would be the size of three football fields.
These supertankers would make 225 trips a year through a tight passage used by 5,552 other vessels.
British Columbians know their coast. When the Justa-son pollsters asked specifically about supertankers transiting Inside Passage waters off the Great Bear Rainforest, support fell to 22 per cent and opposition spiked to 66 per cent, with 50 per cent registering strong opposition.
Expect this opposition to solidify as the likely consequences of a major tanker accident emerge from the risk assessments filed with the National Energy Board.
For example, the application includes one scenario that assesses the environmental risk of a 216,000-barrel spill of bitumen into Wright Sound, where the B.C. ferry Queen of the North sank in 2006.
It assumes that the spill would happen in summer. Seventy-six per cent of the heavy oil would "strand" along 240 kilometres of shoreline on Fin Island, Far-rant Island, Gil Island, around Hartley Bay, Cridge Passage, Lewis Passage, Squally Channel, Grenville Channel, Whale Channel, Campania Island and Caamaño Sound.
"Since the diluted bitumen does not readily evaporate, and may be moved around by the tide, it should be assumed that the entire intertidal zone would be oiled along the shore-line exposed to the spill. The stranded diluted bitumen can be expected to coat rocks, rock-weed, and sessile invertebrates in the affected area, and some of the diluted bitumen may find its way deeper into gravel or rocky intertidal substrates."
Most at risk would be sea otters, Steller sea lions, harbour porpoises, mink, bald eagles, marbled murrelets, spotted sandpipers, surf scoters - and, of course, mussels, clams, oysters, crabs and other crustaceans, which would be contaminated with carcinogenic compounds for years afterward.
British Columbians, being familiar with North Coast weather conditions where hurricane-force winds and 30-metre seas are not uncommon, will immediately wonder why the risk assessment assumes optimum summer conditions for the spill rather than the middle of a winter howler.
Pipeline proponents point out that a large spill from tanker transit is only likely to occur once every 250 years. Mind you, the unsinkable Titanic sank only once and we're still talking about it in hushed tones 100 years later.
Source: vancouver sun
Author: Stephen Hume
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