In reading Jonathan Lazar’s letter to the editor (Anti-pipeline Position Ignores Fossil Fuel Reliance, Nov. 23 Mailbox), I was surprised by his use of the word “informed reader.” An informed reader would know that there have not been 3,000 tanker trips in the Salish Seas since 1953.
Mr. Lazar is assuming that there have been about 50 oil tankers a year heading to Westridge terminal, but between 1954 and 1982, there were only 10 years when crude oil tanker shipments left the terminal. In 2016, the projection is that there will only be 14 oil tankers visiting Westridge terminal.
This aside, there are two comments Mr. Lazar makes that I would like to respond to. The first is his comment that with railroads “the likelihood of another Lac Magantique(sic) disaster is much more likely than a marine spill.” I think he should be open to the substantial amount of information that suggests that should the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion go ahead, a disaster much worse than Lac Magantic could occur.
With the expansion of the tank farm capacity on Burnaby Mountain, there is a greater chance of a leak, fire, or boil-over of stored diluted bitumen. A catastrophic event in this tank farm could affect the lives of thousands and thousands of people living in the area below the tank farm, living in the private residences of UniverCity, and attending or working at Simon Fraser University … not to mention those of us living on the east side of the North Shore.
The second comment relates to our current use of and reliance on petroleum products. I think everyone would agree that Canadians need oil for transportation and for products we use on a daily basis. But this expansion of the pipeline proposed for oil (diluted bitumen) transport is not for Canadians, it is for export to other nations. It is for exporting a substance that is to be refined elsewhere, thus denying jobs for Canadians and making a potential spill on water or land all the more dangerous because of the chemicals added to make the bitumen flow in the pipelines.
Without a national energy policy, the question that needs to be asked is: “Is this the best strategy for using our finite resources?” Wouldn’t this reservoir of oil be better used by current and future generations of Canadians as we transition to renewable, safe energy sources?
Therese Paradis
North Vancouver
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