you can sign the petition to stop tankers in northern coastal waters5 reasons why 1. The certainty of spills At a rate of 130 tankers a year traveling through the Hectate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound and the Douglas Channel oil spills are a matter of when and how large, not if. Industry averages suggest that there would be a "moderate" spill of over 1,000 barrels every 6-7 years and a "major" spill of over 10,000 barrels every 16 years.
2. The impossible clean-up In ideal conditions the oil industry considers a 15% clean-up of spills a success, a target they have never actually achieved. The deeply indented coastline of northern BC poses far from ideal conditions. Extreme weather and the lack of natural flushing in the Douglas Channel will make cleanup from the inevitable spills even more difficult.
3. The local ecology Tankers would be traveling along the labyrinthine coastline of BC, through grey whale migratory routes, past approximately 650 salmon spawning rivers and through the feeding grounds for humpback and orca whales. Over 20 threatened and endangered species would be negatively impacted by a spill.
4. Jobs and communities An oil spill would devastate the coastal communities and First Nations that rely on tourism and fishing for their livelihoods. Cruise ships take between 300,000 - 500,000 people a year through the inside passage to Prince Rupert. BC's coastal fishery generates over $1.7 billion and more than 16,000 jobs.
5. Global warming Oil tankers in BC facilitate the massive projected expansion of the Alberta tar sands, the single largest contributor to the growth of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. A barrel of tar sands crude takes 5 to 10 times more energy to produce than a barrel of conventional oil.
