Raw oysters - one more reason to support the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network.
These mammal-hunting orcas roam the entire Pacific coast from California to Alaska, including BC’s waters.
Orcas may breach while socializing, communicating with other whales, shaking off parasites, or during moments of excitement around a hunt.
However underwater noise pollution from vessel traffic can interfere with how whales hunt and communicate with each other.
Traffic in North Coast waters is projected to increase by 217% by 2040.
When that happens, all marine mammals using those waterways will be affected. This will not only lead to noisier waters but also increase the risk of vessel strikes.
In the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network, critical migration routes and feeding grounds will be subject to vessel slowdown or no-go zones designed to reduce disturbance and underwater noise.
Quieter waters give killer whales like Jack more room to live and hunt along the coast we all share.
Video by: Christopher Schwan
Original video from https://www.instagram.com/vancouver.eyes/
The diluents make it thinner and easier to transport. But that convenience for industry becomes a disaster once it is loaded on tankers.
Dilbit is a mixture of two things. First, heavy, tar-like bitumen from the Alberta oil sands. Second, lighter liquid chemicals called diluents. Once dilbit escapes into cold ocean water, those light chemicals evaporate quickly. What gets left behind is heavy, sticky bitumen that does not float like regular oil. Instead, it sinks or hangs just below the surface.
This creates a nightmare scenario for spill response. Traditional cleanup methods, like booms and skimmers, are designed for floating oil. With dilbit, you cannot see most of it from the air. It can travel underwater, coat the seafloor, and get buried in sand or gravel.
It also emulsifies, or mixes with water, into a thick, gooey mousse that is nearly impossible to pump or collect.
A dilbit spill from a tanker would smother clam beds, eelgrass, and herring spawning grounds for years. And because bitumen sinks, cleanup crews would be scraping rocks and diving into cold water for years while the oil companies who spilled it faced few real consequences.
Dilbit is a risk our waters, our food, and our families cannot afford.
We are doing the work to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPA), restoring habitats and rebuilding fish stocks one careful step at a time. But what is the point of all that effort if we allow tankers filled with dilbit to travel through these same waters?
Water does not respect boundary lines. A spill near an MPA will not stay outside it.
Currents will carry oil straight into the very zones we are trying to protect, wiping out years of restoration in a matter of days.
A spill hits. The company pays… right?
In 2016, the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground and spilled 110,000 litres of diesel into Heiltsuk waters. A working food system was shut down overnight. Clam harvests collapsed. Families lost a major source of income and food.
The Heiltsuk Nation estimates over $23 million in damages.
The company faced about $2.9 million in penalties. Yes, you read that right.
Years later, the community is still fighting for compensation. Still waiting. Still paying. In fact, they’ve even had to pay out of pocket for monitoring, recovery, and legal action.
That’s the gap in “polluter pays.” It’s more like “polluter shrugs.”
Costs don’t land where the damage happens. They land on the people closest to it, while insurance covers the mistakes made by companies – well, only a small portion of it.
And this was a tugboat. A tugboat.
But sure, let’s scale that up to a supertanker spill on the North Coast, you know that place known for its rough weather conditions that would make oil recovery even harder. What could go wrong?
This is what’s at stake when Alberta tries to take down the North Coast tanker ban. That’s exactly what they’re asking us to be okay with.
The people of BC are not here to subsidize the costs incurred by oil companies taking risks that we told them not to take. We meant it the first time.
Fisheries on both coasts use Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ), which divides the total allowable catch into quota shares that can be bought, sold, and leased.
On the East Coast, the ITQ system keeps fishing quota in the hands of the people doing the fishing, owner-operators. The intent is clear: protect independent harvesters and keep value in coastal communities.
On the West Coast, these protections don’t exist, so anyone, not just owner-operators, can own quota, including corporations like Canfisco. So independent harvesters have to lease quota from the people who hoard it, and that quota comes at a very steep price. Yikes!
In some years, the lease price for quota has exceeded the price per pound at the dock, wiping out any margin before a single expense is paid. Harvesters are forced to go into debt.
There is something fishy going on our coast, and if we want a future for independent harvesters on this coast, this has to change.