Dear Editor:
Thank you for your recent coverage of the spill in Deep Cove ("Unexplained spill soils Deep Cove" Jan. 22).
You reported that four agencies responded (District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue, municipal environmental technicians, Port Metro Vancouver and Environment Canada) yet it appeared they were unable to do anything to address the contaminated air, land and water. No one posted warnings to protect beach goers or boaters from the suspected petrochemicals and no one attempted containment or clean-up.Children on the beach were handling oil covered pebbles the morning of the spill.Kinder Morgan is proposing to twin their pipeline and expand the Westridge oil terminal (located directly across from Cates Park). The terminal's capacity will be increased to three berths and oil tanker traffic through Burrard Inlet will increase from 60-ish per year to over 400 tankers filled with diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands. In the event of a spill, oil will contaminate the water, wash onto the shore and acloud of vapourized benzene and other chemicals will blow over the residents of North Vancouver. These chemicals are carcinogens and teratogens. Will those responders who came out recently be able to do anything more to protect us from these risks? Experts say that typically only five to 15 per cent of an oil spill is recovered.
We have recently formed a community group (nsnope.org), working to inform our neighbours about the Kinder Morgan proposal. We are talking to all levels of government. We are encouraging residents to get engaged.
We need to hold the federal government to account for the risks that they are asking us to assume.
Chloe Hartley
North Vancouver
