Dear Editor:
Re: More Pipeline Suits Launched by First Nations, Jan. 18 front-page story.
As a former senior industrial hygienist at WorkSafeBC, I had direct experience with drafting parameters and criteria for the creation of industrial health and safety regulations in B.C.
With regard to the suit launched by North Shore First Nations aimed at stopping the construction of Kinder Morgan’s expanded pipeline, Tsleil-Waututh Nation Chief Maureen Thomas outlines various flaws in the federal government’s consultation process. Among these flaws, she states that “the oil spill risks and health impacts were significantly understated.”
I strongly and unequivocally support this statement made by Chief Thomas.
In the event of an oil spill, quantitative and qualitative assessments of the impacts on human and environmental health have been understated to the point of being generally avoided or ignored.
How many of us have read a media report of any substantive statement on the risks and impacts of a potential oil spill in our waters? Or have heard a government politician respond directly to that issue?
I believe the risks and impacts of an oil spill were “understated” to avoid dealing with the elephant in the room – which is the fact that diluted bitumen would have very detrimental, permanent impacts on the health of our environment, and that adequate technology is not even available to clean up that kind of ocean oil spill.
How can such a situation, on a greatly expanded scale, be in any way acceptable?
Based on my experience in the field of industrial health and safety, it certainly isn’t. It is even less so in a large urban coastal area which is greatly dependent upon its environment for its economy.
Simply put, the issue is “understated” because it has been essentially whitewashed at our great peril and expense by political power brokers who have, wittingly or not, placed the corporate agenda ahead of the well-being of our communities. It is, in my estimation, an appalling situation which defies rudimentary common sense. I also believe that many of us, as ordinary citizens, are feeling this at a gut level – which is the reason this proposed pipeline expansion has become so viscerally upsetting and frustrating for a very large number of Metro Vancouver residents.
Our mayors, councils and other politicians, our newspaper editorial boards, our community and professional organizations and each of us – as ordinary citizens – must support our First Nations and follow their lead in sending a powerful message to the federal government and the world at large that we strongly oppose the construction of Kinder Morgan’s Trans
Mountain pipeline. It is critical that we marshal our resources in putting a stop to this project as we are not only protecting the physical, social and economic well-being of our communities, but our fundamental way of life on the West Coast of Canada.
John Sbragia
Bowen Island
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