Kayakers’ view of pipeline shored up by 900-km paddle
BY FRANK LUBA
Protecting B.C.‘s coast from an oil spill is even more important to Faroe Des Roches now that she’s kayaked all the way from Kitimat to Vancouver with her friends.
Vancouver native Des Roches, 24, Surrey’s Ryan Vandecasteyen, 25, and Curtis White, 20, of Maple Ridge left Kitimat Sept. 1 and returned home Saturday.
As their website, www.the pipedreamsproject.orgproudly declares, the voyage was “3 kayakers, 2 months, 900 kilometres, 1 coast.”
The three co-workers from Ecomarine Kayaking decided to make the trip to raise awareness about the risks to the fragile B.C. coast from increased oil-tanker traffic.
More ships would be required because of Enbridge’s proposed $5.5-billion pipeline from north of Edmonton to Kitimat.
The idea of a pipeline across B.C.‘s north and tankers on the province’s coast is a long way from the consciousness of most of the province.
“Being from the city, we just felt we were disconnected from the coast, from the Enbridge pipeline proposal,” said Des Roches.
But paddling the oil tankers’ route brought the danger into focus.
“The risk of an oil spill would be devastating for the coast,” said Des Roches.
She was opposed to the pipeline before setting out, but the trip and the voyage “reinforced it a thousand fold.”
The 1,172-km-long pipeline would carry an average of 525,000 barrels of petroleum a day, according to the project’s website.
While the trio spent five to six hours a day on the water, they were in communication with residents and other travellers along the way.
“There was only one person on the entire trip I spoke to that was considering the pipeline might be a good idea,” said Des Roches.
Her message is that people need to get actively involved in the discussion around the pipeline.
“We need to create spaces for our involvement, to have our voices heard and to actually make this into a real democratic process,” she said.
And it didn’t hurt that the trip was “great fun.”
“It was incredible,” she said. In addition to blogging about the
trip, the trio filmed their voyage and hope to make it into a documentary. fluba@theprovince.com
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