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Keep BC's Coast oil tanker Free

The wild and pristine coastal waters of Northern BC have been protected by a moratorium on oil tanker traffic since 1972. This ban on tankers through the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound is now under threat. Proposed projects such as the Enbridge and Pembina pipelines would necessitate tanker traffic on the north coast.

It is time to strengthen the oil tanker moratorium and turn it from policy into law.

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5 Reasons to Stop Tankers in our Northern Coastal Waters

1. The certainty of oil spills

At a rate of 320 tankers a year traveling through the Hecate 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 2-3 years and a ‘major’ spill of over 10,000 barrels every 6-7 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 travelling 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 are to 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.