Feature story - August 27, 2007
Government inaction on a diesel spill in an ecological reserve northeast of Vancouver Island has caused Greenpeace to prepare to take investigative action into our own hands. The wreckage, including a diesel truck, from a capsized barge remains on the ocean floor and there is a concern that fuel may continue to leak into the marine environment.
We are working to make sure this doesn't happen by calling on
theHarper and Campbell governments to assess the wreckage and
takeappropriate action to protect the threatened resident orcas and
othersea life.
On the evening of Monday August 20th abarge carrying logging
equipment, a diesel fuel truck with a capacityof approximately
10,000 litres and 13 barrels of oil, tipped over anddumped its load
within the boundaries of Robson Bight (Michael Bigg)Ecological
Reserve in Johnstone Straight, northeast of VancouverIsland. This
accident is also close to a portion of the newly announcedGreat
Bear Rainforest conservancy called Boat Bay, which we have
beenworking hard to protect.
It is not clear just howmuch fuel leaked from the truck to date,
and the sunken truck may be aticking time bomb in the middle of
this ecologically sensitive area. Weare particularly concerned
about the resident orcas- one of the world'slargest resident
populations- that come to the area every year to feedand rub their
bellies on the soft pebble ocean floor of Robson Bight.Various orca
families have been seen swimming through the spill sincethe
accident, and the potential impacts to their health remain of
greatconcern. Scientists are monitoring them closely. Weknow that
impacts can be slow to show up: whales began dying a fullyear after
the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill occurred.
The fact that the spill took place in a no trafficreserve shows
that the government is not working hard enough to enforceprotective
boundaries, and the weak response and assessment effort hasraised
many questions about their overall concern for the health ofB.C.'s
coasts and their ability to respond to larger scale, more
remoteincidents. The Harper government has yet to acknowledge the
moratoriumon tanker traffic that 8 other PMs have supported since
1972, and wefear the consequences of a larger-scale spill that
could result fromincreased tanker traffic along the west coast.
Greenpeace, in partnership with the Living OceansSociety, is
calling on the federal and provincial governments to committo a
submarine assessment of the wreckage by September 14th… or else
wewill do it ourselves.
More information is availableat www.livingoceans.org