Anti-Gateway rally shines light on marine mishaps
A bulk carrier with a cracked hull provided the backdrop for a rally in Prince Rupert as protesters tried to draw attention to shipping risks associated with the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project.
Gillian Glover, a Transport Canada spokeswoman, said on Monday that the Italian registered bulk carrier Giuseppe Lembo had a 1.5-metre crack in its hull just above the waterline when it reached port on Friday.
“There was no pollution” from the break in the hull, she said, and the cause of the damage is under investigation.
The Giuseppe Lembo is being repaired in Prince Rupert, at docks not far from where a federal panel is reviewing the Gateway project. The focus of hearings this week is marine safety.
The shipping accident was the third incident in as many weeks involving deep sea freighters on the West Coast. One ship ran aground outside Prince Rupert harbour in late November, and last week, a freighter sliced through a coal conveyor belt at Westshore Terminals in Metro Vancouver.
None of those accidents were major, but Jennifer Rice, a Prince Rupert councillor and member of the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation, said they underline the unpredictable risks of freighter transportation.
She said from most ports in the world, ships reach the open ocean within 25 nautical miles or less, but tankers leaving the Enbridge site would have to travel 200 nautical miles down Douglas Channel, making several turns before reaching the open Pacific.
“It is a huge experiment. . . . I mean the risks are just too great,” Ms. Rice said of the Enbridge proposal, which would deliver bitumen to a port facility in Kitimat, south of Prince Rupert, where it would be loaded on tankers for export via Douglas Channel.
Ms. Rice said the focus of the rally was an Enbridge advertisement that environmental groups and first nations think is misleading because it features a map that fails to show a cluster of islands in Douglas Channel.
“The theme of the rally was missing islands,” she said, noting the simplified Enbridge map left out 16 islands on the shipping route.
“We are pretty concerned they are sending a message to everyone, to the public, to the world that this is a safe tanker route when in fact it is riddled with islands, rocks and jagged coastline,” Ms. Rice said.
She called on Enbridge to withdraw the ads, which the company has defended. A statement on the company website since August states the campaign is not meant to mislead the public.
“Our pipeline route animations were never meant to provide you with information about our proposed marine operations, the Douglas Channel or the B.C coast,” the company says.
“In the animated pipeline route flyover video we provided the following disclaimer: ‘The animation is for illustrative purposes only. It is meant to be broadly representational, not to scale.’”
Enbridge says another video on its website provides a far more detailed look at the marine route.
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