A2 - Sunday, March 18, 1984 - North Shore News

Kitt Spoke :

Strictly personal

by Bob Hunter .

ocial side of ail

> OB ROYER, THE MANAGER for the.

B Kwaikutl Indian band in Alert Bay, is a Cree
from Alberta who remembers vividly what it
was like when the oil rig crews arrived in the nor-

thern prairies.

‘‘Suddenly, your regular
seat in the pub is taken up by
all these new guys, their
pockets bulging with money.
And guess who the girls are
interested in?’’

Trouble? You bet. The in-
vading hordes of oil workers
are mostly young single males
prone to getting drunk on
Saturday night, chasing girls
and maybe getting into a
fight or two.

That’s the social side of ol
drilling, its inevitably brutal
impact on the small remote

communities adjacent the
drilling sites. That's one
reason few people along

B.C.’s suall-priastine coasthne
are all that keen about the
prospect of the moratorium
on off-shore drifling and
exploration being lifted

Ac the Tsimshian village of
Hartley Bay, near Kitimat,
Chief Clifton points out the
mpple from a freighter curl
ing lazily into the bay where
his people pick oysters and
sea grass They still depend
on the sea for much of thetr
food

The foreshore in tron of
the village wo thei garden ht
won the estuaries and tide
Mats and delias that marine
life thrives, far more so than
in the lonely, chilling depths

Ii as not yast that ol cigs
will eventually cause spills.
which affect mainly the sensi
tive intertidal zones, the
caploration process itself
cteates messes in places tike
Alert Bay and Hartley Bay
there messcs
alastrophes

up = at
years

become

1owas
several

Alert
ago

Bay
when a

freighter named the Irish
Stardust went up on _ the
rocks. The spilled fuel could
be seen in a gray sheen across
the water all down Johnstone
Strait. Around Alert Bay, the
beaches were ablaze as ex-
hausted men, women and
children threw straw into the
oil and raked it up into piles
to burn.

These memories don't
fade. At the ume | wondered
if this was a ghmpse of the
future, the final indignity to a
coast that has been gang.
banged at least as violently as
British Columbia's forests
themselves

First, the decrmation of the
fur seals, then the whales,
then the sea hons, then the
hahbut, then the salmon -
and in the end, a crude black
tuncral blanket Mloating on a
biological waste

All the damage that has
been done to the coast fishery
so tar, by logging along
streams, damming the rivers
and) pouring cffluent into
them, pumping bilges, drain
ing talings from mines, and
overfishing, devastating as it
is, doesn’t compare to the
kind of damage we are bound
to do in the future sf oil dell
ing ts allowed

Recently, Chevion and
Petro-C an published their in
taal environmental evalua
tions of what they think the
physical, biological and
“soco-cconomic’’ impact of
gas and oil exploration drill
ing would be

}olove that word, socio
CCONOMIC although | can
never quiet figure Out what it
means Does it have anything
to do with peoptic. cheir tives,
then homes?

Certainty, it is in this area
that acither the people's orl

hlerewe «3 the tbue fb

Studying education

CAPILANO COLLEGE educators bent to the task of figuring out what's going on in the
education world Wednesday. Education Week was marked with study sessions and student
protests against the provincial government's education policies.

It’s easy to be creative

aving stones on a prepared
ase. And, in no time at all,
you can build patios and
pool surrounds, paths

and driveways.
More beautiful than
poured concrete, but
—_ ‘ a ust as affordable,
News photoweny Pern DecorStone pavers are avail-

able in four attractive shapes

and a choice of natural shades.

COME TO OUR FREE ‘‘DO IT YOURSELF”’
DEMONSTRATION,

SATURDAY, MARCH 24
10 am, 11 am, 12 noon

company nor Chevron seem
to have much of an idea
about anything. The Chevron
report actually says: ‘‘Very
little is known regarding how
fishermen will respond to the
existence of an oil spill in
their fishing area.”’

1 wonder how much money
they spent to research that
choice piece of data?

These reports chill me to
the bone. | fear for our coast.

More on the bad news in
the next column.

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