Dear editor,
Why all the fuss about the proposed Enbridge pipeline?
The Northern Gateway Pipeline Project is a proposal by Enbridge Corporation to build two parallel pipelines from Bruderheim, Alta., to Kitimat.
The 1,170-km pipelines would cross more than 1,000 watercourses and bring unrefined dirty bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to our northern coast to be loaded on supertankers for export to Asia and California.
Building pipelines through the Great Bear Rainforest would result in massive deforestation of one of the best carbon sinks on the planet. Constructing the pipeline would destroy habitat for wildlife, including endangered spirit bears.
Enbridge claims that they know how to build pipelines safely, yet their pipelines have already resulted in over 800 spills, doing irreparable damage to ecosystems. The corrosive sand component of bitumen increases the risk of pipeline rupture.
Once the bitumen arrives at Kitimat, it would be loaded on supertankers which would be required to navigate treacherous waters with erratic currents and winds that regularly reach hurricane force. The route also includes several 90-degree turns, making it even more dangerous.
Based upon the experience of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it is not a matter of if but of when an oil spill would occur?
These new supertankers are many times larger than the Exxon Valdez and computer models show that an oil spill would likely reach our own local beaches. The viscosity of raw bitumen makes it virtually impossible to recover once a spill occurs.
For future generations, we simply cannot allow this to happen to our beautiful coastline!
Over 70 First Nations, including all of the coastal First Nations, are opposed to this proposal because they know that it threatens their way of life. The consequences of an oil spill in wild salmon watersheds would be long-lasting, devastating, and have enormous cultural impacts.
The risks to thousands of sustainable jobs in fisheries and tourism are simply not worth it. Yet the Harper Conservatives simply demonize those who are opposed to the project. Not only is our coast at risk, so is our democracy.
I’ll be standing up against the Enbridge proposal at the rally this Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Comox Community Centre, the site of the Joint Review Process hearings on this project.
Please join with us!
Janet Fairbanks,
Courtenay
