Monday, October 17th, 2016
Monday, October 17th, 2016
by Joyce Nelson / Counter Punch
Photo by National Geographic
Outrage is the only word for what people are feeling after a tug and fuel barge, owned by Texas-based Kirby Offshore Marine, crashed on rocks in the heart of B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest on October 13. It’s been leaking 200,000 litres (59, 024 gallons) of diesel fuel into the sensitive marine ecosystem ever since.
The 30-metre Nathan E. Stewart tug was pushing the empty fuel barge DBL 55 south from Alaska where it had dropped off its petroleum cargo of 52,000 barrels of oil. It was operating without a local pilot in the complicated waters of the spectacular Inside Passage.
Only three weeks ago, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, had visited the Great Bear Rainforest near Bella Bella, B.C. and were hosted there by the Heiltsuk First Nation, who have extensive clam, herring, salmon and other fisheries in the region now threatened by the sunken tug’s oil slick.
The Great Bear Rainforest is the largest remaining tract of intact temperate rainforest in the world. It is home to Sandhill cranes, grizzly bears, grey wolves, humpback and orca whales, giant conifers, every species of wild salmon, and many other wild species.
Ingmar Lee, an environmental activist who owns a popular eco-tourism business called C’idawai Point Cabins near Bella Bella, told me by email on Oct. 16 that there is “a veritable holocaust of helicopters flying over our house here at first light this morning. Texas personnel are out there shovelling money in any direction they can.”
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