'There's no need for B.C. oil port'
Miguel Moya photo
• UFAWU president Jack Nichol leaves podium after presenting the fishing industry's position to an opening session of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry in Vancouver July 19.
By MIGUEL MOYA
AN oil port in or near B.C. is not essential to this country's energy needs and if such a port is built it will lead to destruction of the most valuable commercial fisheries on this coast.
This was the message UFAWU president Jack Nichol delivered to an opening session of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry in Vancouver July 19.
Nichol said that in presenting the fishing industry's case to the inquiry, the UFAWU will demonstrate "that an oil port and supertanker traffic in Canadian waters or waters which we share with the U.S. are of no benefit to Canada whatsoever" and that it is a myth that this is essential to Canada's energy needs.
The oil companies, he charged, are not telling the public the truth about Canada's energy needs, and we are not running out of oil as they would have us believe.
"The main line the proponents will advance as justification for involving Canada in the process of serving U.S. needs is that we can use a B.C. pipeline to bring in foreign oil for our needs as well, since our supplies are drying up.
"The argument is false. Canada is currently exporting 40 percent of our oil production to the U.S., and this huge drain can be curtailed."
Nichol noted there is enough oil in the Alberta tar sands to supply Canada's needs for centuries.
With supertankers plying B.C. coastal waters, oil spills will be inevitable, he explained, and this would mean the destruction of entire stocks of fish.
Fisheries, unlike oil, are a self-renewing resource if properly managed, he pointed out. People living on the B.C. coast have depended on fishing for centuries, it is a multi-million dollar industry and it employs thousands of people.
He noted that the federal government is about to spend $150 million during the next five years on a salmon enhancement program to repair the damage done by industrial development and reckless exploitation. In light of this, oil tanker traffic on the coast would be "nothing short of madness."
Nichol promised the inquiry that the union would produce evidence through expert witnesses "to prove conclusively that we face the destruction of the B.C. fishery resource if the government of Canada submits to an oil port and supertankers in Canadian or adjacent waters."
Nichol also was critical of the inquiry's frame work and terms of reference.
Phase one of the inquiry, dealing with laws and regulations governing oil ports and tankers, should be postponed, he said, until new terms of reference are drawn up to make the inquiry more effective.
The inquiry's deadline of December 31 is limiting and should be extended if it is "to reach logical, practical and acceptable conclusions."
Although the inquiry's scope has been increased, he said, there has been no increase in participant funding or addition of participants.
Nichol also objected that Northern Tier Pipeline Company, which proposes an oil port and pipeline at Port Angeles, Wash., will not be participating in the inquiry, even though its project would have serious implications for this country.
Northern Tier has said its project "is not relevant to the Canadian inquiry" and has refused to participate.
Sohio Transportation Company's proposal to receive Alaskan crude by tanker at Long Beach, Calif., is the only one that does not jeopardize Canadian interests, Nichol contended, but this company has not even been invited to participate.
He indicated that the "downgrading" of this proposal is tacit agreement by the Canadian government that an oil terminal should be allowed in or near Canada.
Nichol called on the inquiry's commissioner, Dr. Andrew Thompson, to approach the federal government with several proposals that:
— The government give the in-
quiry authority to invite Arco, Northern Tier and Sohio on the same full status as Kitimat Pipeline Ltd. and Trans Mountain.
— The government instruct the National Energy Board not to hold hearings on the land pipeline until after a restructured inquiry, with the authority to investigate this pipeline, is complete.
— The government give the inquiry more time to fully assess the impact of all proposed projects.
Nichol added that he wants "the job done properly right from the very beginning," saying the country's interests demand the comprehensive inquiry he proposes.
In other presentations during the three-day opening session of the inquiry, Mayor George Thorn of Kitimat said Kitimat District Council endorses development of an oil terminal in its city.
He claimed that the environmental risks resulting from possible oil spills are lower in the waterways approaching Kiti-mat's harbor than in Juan de Fuca Strait.
Thorn stressed that if a pipeline is built at Kitimat, there must be proper safeguards and enforcement of regulations to ensure protection of the environment.
A pipeline at Kitimat, he calculated, would pay the district about $1.6 million a year in "badly needed" tax revenues.
Last month Kitimat Pipe Line Ltd. asked the NEB to hold its application in abeyance pending outcome of Trans Mountain's application at Cherry Point.
Dr. Ruth Weiner, speaking for the Washington Coalition Against Oil Pollution, said the coalition has decided reluctantly that a tanker terminal at or west of Port Angeles would be the least hazardous prospect.
In the July 22 session, Ken Hall, Trans Mountain's president, maintained that Canada's dwindling oil reserves dictated the need for a decision on an oil port this year because "time is running out."
He claimed that of all the proposals, his company's would be the cheapest, make maximum use of existing facilities and cause less environmental disturbance.
Because Northern Tier has declined to participate in the inquiry, its proposal was explained by Dr. William Brewer, a civil engineering professor at the University of Washington and former executive director of the Energy Policy Council of Washington state.
Brewer said that at the request
of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, a consulting firm did an environmental impact study of the Northern Tier proposal.
This study found that the application is "seriously deficient in respect to the existing guidelines of the siting council."
However, the study explained that some of these deficiencies arose because the guidelines were developed after Northern Tier had made its application.
Brewer reported that Northern Tier now is responding to this study and is "vigorously" pursuing its application.
The pipeline would cross watersheds supplying domestic irrigation and industrial water, and therefore several muni-
cipalities are likely intervenors in the application, he indicated.
Stan Persky, representing VOICE composed of the Kitimat-Terrace and Prince Rupert labor councils, said the Native peoples' grievances should be settled before any port is recommended at Kitimat.
Developments like the proposed oil port at Kitimat, he claimed, are "incapable of generating well-rounded, relatively self-sufficient regions."
David Anderson, former Liberal provincial leader and spokesman for the B.C. Wildlife Federation, said his organization had concluded that an oil port is inevitable, that only one is needed and that it sould be built at or west- of Port Angeles
because chances of oil spills are less there than at Cherry Point.
The UFAWU earlier had criticized Anderson for a pre-hearing press release supporting the Port Angeles proposal.
The union maintained that Anderson's position was unfounded since southern U.S. sites would not pose an environmental threat to Canadian waters, and would be a sounder alternative.
Tony Pearse, representing the Kitimat Oil Coalition, comprising 20 organizations including the UFAWU, opposed an oil port at Kitimat and anywhere in Puget Sound.
He said a Canadian west coast oil port is economically unnecessary and environmentally unsound. American oil ports adjacent to Canadian waters would pose "grave environmental risk to valuable Canadian marine and coastal resources."
Equally concerned about all proposed locations was Peter Fischer, representing the West Coast Environmental Law Association.
At the July 20 session, he said that Canada is not among the world leaders in protection of her coastline, and Canadian laws dealing with the prevention of oil spills, clean up and compensation, are inadequate.
Spokesmen for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, Nishga Tribal Council, Haida nation and the Kitimaat Band all came out against increased tanker traffic along the B.C. coast and called for settlement of Native land claims before further economic development.
Ronald Richards, a country commissioner for Clallam County, Wash., where Port Angeles is located, told the inquiry that his country is opposed to an oil port within its boundaries.
At an inquiry community hearing at Namu July 22, Don Taylor, a gillnetter and former UFAWU small boat vice-president, told Thompson that an oil spill in this area would wipe out the entire herring fishery, which is worth $50 million to $60 million a year.
Other fishermen also expressed their fears of tanker traf-fice on the coast and the threat this would pose to their livelihood.
Thompson travelled to Namu aboard the UFAWU organizing vessel George Miller to get a first hand look at the coast and to hear fishermen's views.
The inquiry's formal hearings will resume September 7 in Vancouver.
John Steeves photo
* Former UFAWU small boat vice-president Don Taylor explains Namu July 22. Taylor was one of many fishermen at the hearing the hazards of oil tanker traffic in Douglas Channel leading to Kiti- who voiced fear that their livelihood would be threatened by an oil mat at a community hearing of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry in port at Kitimat.
THE FISHERMAN — JULY 29, 1977 / 5