Dear Editor:

In your Aug. 20 story NV Men Stage 1,300-km Protest, the interviewees are quoted as saying ". . . and when you introduce oil tankers. . . ."

Oil tankers have plied B.C. waters for nearly a century -- they are not being "introduced," although historically B.C.'s tankers were smaller than now proposed by Enbridge.

Why do Todd McGowan and Frank Wolf think Enbridge's oil tankers crossing the northern passages would have any more effect on whales than the hundreds of other vessels, including huge cruise ships, transiting the length of the inside passage and northern waters?

McAllister talks of "the recent shipping disasters . . . on the B.C. coast -- large freighters, tankers, tugboats. . . ." Perhaps he would care to name even one tanker disaster on the B.C. coast in the last century?

I have researched the near century history of oil tankers on the B.C. coast, and you can find the history of Imperial Oil's tankers in the Port Moody museum. Despite operating for decades before LORAN, GPS, radar, pilots, double hulls and tethered tugs, we have never had a tanker disaster in our waters. It is no guarantee, and careful investigation of Enbridge's proposals is warranted, but let us try to agree on facts.

John Hunter, North Vancouver