“Four Days of Action” to protect the Salish Sea will begin Friday. The Salish Sea — from the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Georgia Strait and Puget Sound — faces unprecedented proposals for increased transportation of coal and oil for export. These Four Days of Action will raise awareness about the risks to these waters through workshops and educational events, oil spill drills, a rally at the Peace Arch at the U.S.-Canadian Border, and the signing of an international treaty.
The events were planned and organized by an alliance of indigenous peoples, environmental and youth activists, and impassioned residents of northwest Washington state and southwestern British Columbia. The treaty to be signed during the Four Days of Action signifies a unified voice that crosses borders, cultures and generations, declaring a common resolve to protect the sacredness of the Salish Sea.
Energy companies see the Salish Sea as the gateway to a lucrative export market and have proposed new pipelines, ports and tanker passages. A 2010 report commissioned by the Puget Sound Partnership estimated that the combination of proposed projects would raise the risk of a major oil spill by 68 percent.
The proposed Kinder-Morgan Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion from Alberta to British Columbia alone would increase the number of tankers through the Salish Sea from five to 34 tankers per month. These tankers would carry a type of crude oil known as “dilbit,” short for “diluted bitumen.” The contents of this thick, biologically degraded and sticky petroleum product are proprietary. But what is known is that dilbit contains carcinogens in the form of lighter fuels or condensates from natural gas, naphtha or a mix of other light hydrocarbons that must be infused in order to transport it.
The increased tanker traffic would transport 890,000 barrels per day — or more than 37 million gallons of oil. To put that in perspective, each day tankers would transport more than three times the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez through the Salish Sea. Tankers would traverse a path through the increasingly crowded Haro Strait, a waterway characterized by dangerous rip tides. As we now know from the grounding of the Exxon Valdez 25 years ago, just one wrong turn or mishap by a supertanker can devastate fragile marine life and the livelihoods, cultures and economies that depend on it for decades to come.
As we have also learned from the Exxon Valdez, crude oil is nearly impossible to contain and clean up once it is spilled. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council reports that as of 2010, crude oil is still present in places in Prince William Sound and is nearly as toxic as it was in the weeks following the spill. In the cold waters of Alaska, the Council estimates that it will be decades, or even centuries, before Prince William Sound is entirely clean. The impacts on marine life also remain. As of 2010, Pacific herring are considered “not recovering” and killer whales, sea otters, clams, mussels, and many seabirds are considered to be “still recovering.”
Exxon and the state of Alaska promised — in contingency plans and legislation — that Prince William Sound would be protected from a major oil spill. Yet these promises weren’t enough to keep a fully loaded tanker from grounding on a charted reef, nor to effectively clean up the spill.
The 21st century represents an opportunity to change the paradigm. Last century’s model of relying on energy companies and the government to protect fragile resources has proven unworthy of our trust. The upcoming Four Days of Action seeks a change away from unreliable promises and safeguards. We must instead recognize that some resources are too fragile, too economically valuable, and too sacred to put at risk.
Angela Day, a resident of Snohomish, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. Her book “Red Light to Starboard: Recalling the Exxon Valdez Disaster” was published by the Washington State University Press in 2014.
Learn more More information about “Four Days of Action can be found at www.protectthesacred.org/4_days_of_action
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