Yep, this isn't about providing oil for BC its all about gaining more wealth for those involved. Greed is the word.
Richard Kinder is the owner of Kinder Morgan and is a billionaire a couple times over. Estimated worth = 8.2 billion dollars.
While crude oil can be devastating to environments when spilled, diluted bitumen from the tar sands is even more difficult to clean up. When mined, tar sands bitumen is so heavy and thick that it can only travel through pipelines when combined with chemical diluents, including benzene (a human carcinogen). When spilled in waterways, the heavy bitumen sinks to the bottom, so conventional clean-up techniques have little effect. At the same time, the chemical diluents such as benzene evaporate and cause toxic clouds in the air.
What are the chances of an oil spill?
According to The Mariners Group, there were 3.2 major oil spills per year over the last 37 years worldwide. However, over the last ten years, that number has climbed to 8.6 major oil spills per year, and in the last five years, soared to 14.8 major oil spills each year.
Oil also enters the ocean through the routine maintenance of ships, and from land-based sources such as the refinery and Kinder-Morgan oil port in Burrard Inlet. Approximately 706 million gallons of waste oil (not oil "spills") enter the ocean every year.
There is also a risk that a tanker could go aground right off our coast. The Inlet where the tankers currently pass through is a very narrow and shallow body of water. The current Aframax tankers that pass through the Burrard Inlet barely clear the ocean floor. Because of the weight and size of the vessels, tankers navigating through the Inlet must wait until daylight high tide before passing through, where they can draw 15 m and clear the ocean floor by 1.5m.
Suexmax tankers, which are 8 metres wider and draw up to 5m deeper than the current tankers, are too big to pass through certain parts of the Inlet. The Second Narrows CN rail bridge is the narrowest and most dangerous point.
Lastly, our coast is located in an earthquake zone. It is not only a tanker going aground, or a leak from the pipeline that could see mass amounts of oil destroying the coast.
It is estimated that the financial damage caused by a potential large-scale oil spill in the Burrard Inlet could cost approximately $40 billion. This number is based on research done from other oil spills and the cost incurred based on the cost per barrel of oil that was spilled.
That $40 billion includes clean-up costs, resident evacuations, tourism loss, losses to the BC fishing industry, health costs and port losses in annual wages and salaries.
But of course, the cost of an oil spill to our natural ecosystems, to places like Stanley Park—which would be destroyed—and to Vancouver’s international reputation as a “Beautiful Green City” is incalculable.
Who would be held liable if an oil spill occurred? Who would pay for all these costs?
Once the oil is on a tanker, the oil companies and pipeline companies can claim they are no longer responsible. As a result, ship owners often register their ships in countries that allow them to set up almost invisible companies. When the ship experiences a big spill, the company just goes bankrupt and disappears.
There are national and international "compensation funds" in place that may be accessed in the event of a major ship-source oil spill. But the maximum amount available from all those funds combined is still billions of dollars less than what would be required to recover from a serious marine spill.
Therefore, the municipal, provincial and federal governments (and taxpayers) would be left having to pay the majority of the costs associated with an oil spill.
For more on oil spill liability, click here to read a 2013 report published by the Wilderness Committee, Living Oceans Society, Georgia Strait Alliance and West Coast Environmental Law.
Just a little info on what and why oil is being brought here and what the consequences could be. This oil isn't for you or I its for Mr. Morgan, the ( already a billionaire ), the politicians with their dirty hands in his pocket and for Asian locations.
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Topic: Directly Affected (Read 17804 times)