Pilotage president’s statement arrogant
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Updated: October 28, 2009 9:47 AM
An open letter to city council:
Dear mayor and councillors,
Our local newspaper, The Northern Sentinel, reports “Pilotage president says oil spill chances nil”. What an arrogant statement.
Sounds like the “unsinkable Titanic” to me.
If this is the kind of advice given by the “experts”, we most certainly need a public inquiry into Enbridge’s proposed oil port at Kitimat.
Mr. Obermeyer was quoted as saying, “The Petersfield accident happened at the worst possible time, just as we got underway with all of these meetings.”
On the contrary, it happened at the best time. It shows that accidents can and do occur.
We have so much to lose and so little to gain. The real winners are the shareholders of the oil companies, not the people of this area.
If there is a catastrophic spill, jobs in tourism and hospitality will be lost as well as the commercial and recreational fisheries.
The incident at Robson Bight shows how quickly we, as taxpayers, could end up paying clean-up costs as well as enduring the environmental damage.
It isn’t worth the risk.
Margaret Ouwehand.
PS - Even today (October 21) we are hearing about an accident involving a relatively new (2003) vessel with all its modern equipment.
An Associated Press story says the tank ship AET Endeavor collided with the 820-foot Liberian-flagged tanker vessel Krymsk, which had oil leaking from it after being damaged in the collision. The crew was transferring oil from the damaged tank to prevent more leakage. The amount of oil spilled is unknown.
The collision happened about 40 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas.
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