Stopping Enbridge’s Oil Tanker, One Stroke At a Time
By Stephanie Goodwin
BC Director for Greenpeace
May 12, 2010
Last week, Norm Hann embarked on a unique journey. He will travel 385 km down the coast of Canada in three weeks on a stand-up paddleboard. He’s trying to protect BC’s Great Bear Rainforest from crude oil tankers and pipelines proposed by Enbridge.
One of Norm’s objectives is to unite communities and document the stories of coastal peoples at their traditional food harvesting sites. His journey coincides with the coastal wild salmon migration and plans to visit First Nations at harvesting sites for herring eggs, crab, halibut, seaweed, sea cucumber and wild salmon.
If Enbridge’s proposal is successful, 1,170km of pipeline will carry more than half a million barrels of tar sands crude oil to the Great Bear Rainforest. It will then be loaded into oil tankers that will thread their way down Douglas Channel to the Inside Passage, bound for Asia.
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill, still uncontrolled after 23 days, is a sobering warning of what fate British Columbia will face if we bring crude oil to our north coast. The current oil spill is taking place 50km from shore. An oil accident of any kind along BC’s coast would occur just a stone’s throw from shore and would take only a matter of hours, not days, to hit land and devastate the marine environment.
During Norm’s journey he will also paddle through waters frequented by B.C.’s resident killer whales, some of the world’s most contaminated wildlife. The northern residents, whose range extends from around Vancouver Island to the most northern waters off B.C., are listed as Threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, and the prospect of oil spills in their habitat threatens the future of these iconic creatures gracing our coast.
Norm is from Squamish, just outside of Vancouver, far from where the pipelines will be built. Why has a seemingly average Canadian citizen standing up on a large surfboard and paddling his way through the Inside Passage? “I have learned that what is here…is something special that cannot be lost,” Norm explains.
You can follow Norm’s journey through his daily blog, Stand Up 4 Great Bear.
Now, just imagine what you could do to help protect this precious rainforest and coast. Remember, anything is possible.
You can also support many First Nations opposed to the project by visiting PipeUpAgainstEnbridge.ca.