ee

-

‘Considered overall, the BC. coast presents | Hecate Strait-Dougias Chan

| seagoing ships with one of the most complicated —
‘navigational problems to he found anywhere im the:

world, and if ome were to list the five most Inland Sea’ gives

individually troachorews | passages am the canst.

ante alta tithe OY dette,

three of them would be found to lie alomg. the involved. That cleanup oper-

etn i

proposed Kitimat tanker route.

Dixon Entrance, between
the Queen Charlotte Islands |
and the. lower end of the

- Alaska Panhandle, is charac-
terized by. heavy tide-rips, ©
t-foot overfalls, unmark-

ed reefs and severe storms at
all times of the year. Rose
Spit on Graham Island, an
imperceptibly gradual sand
spit that juts toward the
mainiand in ten miles of
reefs and shoals, lies at the
turn of the tanker route from
Dixon Entrance down into
Hecate Strait. After the Juan
de Fuca mouth it is probably
the coast’s second | ranking

‘“‘graveyard of Ships”. He-
cate Straits, between the ©

Queen Charlottes and the.

mainland, is notorious for its

shallowness, its reefs and the .
its

unpredictability

of
storms. oo

~

These waters are not.

- unnavigable in fact, they are
- im constant use by medium-
sized ships going in and out
of Prince Rupert. Neverthe- —
less, the hazard is extreme
aad no government that will .
send ships as accident-prone
as these tankers have proven ©
to:-be into an area where the
margin of safety is so low can’
escape the. charge it -

betraying its environmental |

_ trust. ae

‘The above-mentioned haz-
ards, which should ~ be

90-degree turns, one of them |
with barely a mile radius. .

Wright Sound is aiso a wind _.
funnel, a tidal crossroads and —

is bisected midway by
Grenville Channel carrying
-the small. boats, ferries,
cruise ships, barges and
coasting freighters of the |
Inside Passage. :

of
of.

Captain H.L. Cadieux
Nanaime, former curator

the B.C. Maritime Museum .

and master mariner with 30
years experience on the
north coast, has one word for
the plan to run tankers
through | Wright Sound:

Crazy. r)

‘‘These ships. are up over
1,000 feet now,’ he says.
“They take 5 to 7 miles to
stop. And.to turn; even a tug
takes four lengths. Whether
there exists the bare. physical
possibility of getting them
‘through is beside the point.
In bad weather you may have ©
t6 cut your rate of travel to
three or four knots, and-when -
you~. do. that you lose
‘steerage. Instrument failure
is not. a. ‘rarity, is
constant: Soi is ‘aman error
The point.is;-when. you trap <
- ship of that: size in a place

‘that limited, these (ittle -
| everyday 4 yfoblems come }
lethal: You-have onjy half a '

' mile:to Spare. Two or three :
minutes and it’s all over.’

enough in themselves to

disqualify the Kitimat prop- —

osal, relate also to the open
waters, before the tankers
.. turn down the narrow chan-
nels leading inland. The
_ inside leg would begin with
the tankers’ passing, .down
Principe Channel on the east
side. of Banks Island, a
straight 50-mile run some 1.5
miles wide at the narrowest
point with no outstanding
hazards. The real problems
begin at the south end of this

- channel where the route

requires a 90-degree turn on
p radius. of approximately
five miles into Nepean
Sound. Still this is nothing
compared to the twist that
occurs some ten miles later
as the course runs throug?
Wright Sound in a Z-config-
uration requiring two over-

t

del :
wade
b

iver fl lyers
The North Shore News has the most

-efficient and economical delivery
system of flyers, brochures, and

Captain “Donat Peck of
North Vancouver, another
retired master often called as -

an expert witness at mari- -

time accident hearings and
trials, is confident any
serious enquiry will find the
Kitimat route unusable.

‘*It’s. not a question of
Hecate Strait and it’s not a

question of Douglas Chan-—

nel,’’ Peck says. ‘‘It’s a
question of Wright Sound .
and Wright Sound is out of |
the question. I’ve towed |
barges through there and |
barely made it. It’s a hell of a
-place.”’ °

There has never been a
supertanker spill in waters
comparable either. to. ‘the

pamphlets on the North Shore. We — _ ' ;

offer one day delivery,
or Sunday.

We already cover every door on
the North Shore—all we have to do
is Insert your flyer Into our paper,
and pay our carriers a bonus for

each one delivered. .

For delivery rates,
call 980-0511 | |

Pnorth share °

. #202-1139 Lonsdale Avo. Jam

news North Vancouver |

Wednesday

~ regional’ ‘director

-nel-area or to Georgia Strait -
‘but a spill which occurred:
some years ago. in Japan’s
- some
indication of the . cleanup |
- probiem " that would ve.

' ation involved 250,000 peo-

- ple and cost ‘the Japanese

_ government 168 million dol- -

_Tars. .

“Where i in B. Cc. would we
-get’ 250,000. people,’’ asks
Herbert |
Buchanan of the Department
. of © ‘Transport’s | ‘marine ser-
_ Vices ‘branch. ‘‘And if we
rounded them up, how could
we. deploy them on a
coastline . often | inaccessible
except by. sea?”

Obviously v we would have

to do with less manpower
and spend more money,
resorting | to drastic and
expensive technical .
ures such as napalm bomb-
-ing. The largest tankers

_ contemplated for the Alaska

tun would also spill up to six

times as much oil * as. the

350,600 tons invoived in the
- Japanese spill. The bill could’
go as high as one_ billion |
dollars and a substantial
por rtion of ithe B.C. coast—
one of. the world’s geo-
graphic showplaces—would

be turned overnight into an-

industrial cesspool.

The burden of this disaster -
would fall exclusively on the;

Shoulders. of the B.C. tax-
payer since the provincial
-government..has shown -no
inclination ‘to enact: legisla-
; tion making shippers res-
' ponsible:: fori:spill: damages

“and cleanup costs, a power:
‘Dr. Andrew Thompson—now
-- Studying the

admits the province has.

If the spill occurred in the
lower Georgia Strait area,
the Fraser River estuary with
its valuable salmon-rearing

resources and wildfowl nest- |
would be

ing grounds,
irretrievably destroyed. The
beaches of the lower Gulf
Islands, the ‘White Rock-.
Crescent . Beach - ‘area, the

‘Vancouver area and the .

Sunshine Coast would be
killed, and could not be.
“restored in time to. prevent a
collapse of the $300-million-
... dollar-a-year tourist industry

‘that depends on them. The —

‘real estate’ industry would
‘also experience a collapse in
its most lucrative market.

The commercial fishing in-

and professional

mMmecas: —

ities |

question—

" dustry vould | see ‘its. most .
profitable : ‘run—the Fraser

sockeye—severely reduced,

along with important chum
and coho stocks in Georgia

‘Strait.

These are. » only. the most:
‘concrete effects, measurable
in hard cash: terms, but a.

major disaster of this prop-
ortion has less. tangible

‘+ effects which can be just as

devastating. For one thing it

- produces the most intensive

kind -of world-wide bad
publicity, and this has a very
long-lasting. effect on such

‘things as provincial borrow-
ing power, immigration and --
tourism, to merely begin a

long list. For‘another thing it
would severely diminish the
quality of life for waterfront

communities and very prob-.
ably cause a population drain

of the more mobile’ skilled
-away from the coast. _
‘One effect of disasters: too

large to be readily absorbed,
which has. been observed in

every major earthquake and |
flood,

is a severe demoral-
ization throughout the affec-
ted’ population,

on normal life-support activ-

os ae Ym cern st, an on Be
iSt wmonc Macc the

right in your “oxisting"

necessary. And the

eave so much!

te.

. Classes —

leaving -
‘people too spiritless to carry

_As | told you on “T.Vv.";

a dupan has porfocted a tool
_ glazed witdow framos.

Climate and saves heating dollars. 1
an outstanding investmont.
attls and. walls an: well’

- Without even considering —
the: oilsoaked ducks, the.
rong ciaias and oysters 2 at.
‘low tide, the stinking car-.
casses of seals, killer whales,
fish and seaweed heaped
along the beaches . like
driftlogs—the environmental.
loss per se, which by any true:
perspective would be the .
greatest loss—-we Can see.
that the collective effects o a

super-tanker spill in sou
ern waters would be suffic-_
ient to cause major sogial and
- economic breakdown. ;

In northern waters the .

- effects
less,

would. be
although

social
somewhat

economic and environmental, |
damage could be greater.

It is at this point the

concerned observer begins to}
seriously wonder about the = |
capability of B.C. coast

‘people to look | out for.
themselves.

[Howard White is : a s writer,

lisher living om the Sechelt
Feninsuia. His continuing |
series of ‘‘Raincoast Chron-

icles,” dealing with the,
living history of the area,
have achieved widespread
popularity during recent
years. This is the second of
three articles by Mz. White -

on the oil spill threat to the

B.C. coast]

- proof. fabric.

— SEYROL DS’

for

Conv
ontire

And speaking of investment,.
It costs so tittle

'. enormous ‘extra effort req:
y uired for rebuilding. — :

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