In Kami Kanetsuka’s letter from San Miguel, Mexico, published in The Undercurrent last week, she wrote that the place is so wonderful in so many ways that it is easy to think that it is paradise. But of course all the goodness that may exist there is not packaged neatly in bubble wrap away from the world’s troubles. This parallels life on our little paradise too, and last week’s events of the oil spill in English Bay drive home the fact that while we may be an island, we are not sheltered from events beyond our immediate borders.
On Thursday morning, some lucky Bowen Islanders got to see whales feeding at the mouth of Deep Bay. At the same time, reports of an oil spill in English Bay started appearing in the media.
I keep considering the distance between here… and there…
We are not the scene of the accident, yet, we are not so far off that we won’t feel the effects of it. The ocean is a big place, and according to a 2002 report published by the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the average total worldwide release of petroleum into the ocean is estimated at 1.3 million tonnes per year. It must be acknowledge, also, that 46 percent of this yearly leakage comes from sources known as “natural seeps.”
This statistic will leave the optimists among us saying of the English Bay spill: a drop in the bucket… no biggie this one, easy on the fussing, you doomsayers.
But it only takes a microscopic drop of oil to kill a fish embryo, whether it be a herring, or my new favourite fish, the Plainfish Midshipman (these come up from the deep to lay their eggs under seaweed covered boulders in the intertidal zone. Once fertilized, the male fish stick around to guard their young, resulting in a feeding frenzy– some scientists believe these fish make up 50 percent of the diet of bald eagles during the spawning season). And this “small” spill is just one of many ongoing disasters faced by creatures like this one, creatures which most of us are virtually ignorant of. As biologist Ramona DeGraaf put it to me, when it’s death by a thousand cuts already, what happens when there is one more cut?
And those drops of oil… over there… as they sink and swirl in the tides and currents will undoubtedly find their way to the shores of our little paradise. Early last fall, two cards representing oil that had been dropped into the water from the second narrows bridge were found near Dorman Point. Vancouver city councillors have been warned to expect gobs of the thick, toxic fuel to continue washing up on beaches as far as 12 km from the site of the spill. As the weather warms and Bowen Islanders start making their way to our lovely beaches, will we be on the lookout? Will we feel comfortable letting our kids, or our elves, splash and romp in the ocean as we always do?
In the late 60s, I doubt many Bowen beach goers considered the 20 kilos of mercury the Hooker Chemicals plant was dumping into Howe Sound every day, or any of the other pollutants that were being dumped at that time - but this comparison provides me, personally, with little reassurance.
So while I think that it is utterly valuable to hear a range of opinions and statistics on the risks associated with any given project, I think that the concerns of those who have so much to lose (including those who can’t speak for themselves)need to be held paramount.
No matter how hard we try, isolating our little chunk of paradise is not an option. Protecting it, on the other hand, is a necessity.
