Something smells of hypocrisy with those B.C. Greens
Coming to grips with the rampant hypocrisy Victoria Greenies display is enough to make many of us consider a chemical fix to alleviate the resulting pain, confusion and depression.
But who’d have thought the northern horse mussel would need to get high as well.
Yes, those excitable eco-warriors who have decided increased oil tanker traffic off their coastline is a threat to the existence of every man, woman and child in beautiful British Columbia, are a little more carefree when it comes to the welfare of mollusks.
Such long-term laxity isn’t doing the northern horse variety of mussel any favours, not unless being permanently stoned is looked upon as a suitable state of affairs for many of the little critters that unfortunately make their seabed home close to the two raw effluent pipes pouring untreated Victoria sewage into the Pacific Ocean.
Yes, that would be the same, twee town where Andrew Weaver, leader of the provincial Green party and leading rabble-rouser in the current “will it or won’t it get built” pipeline sitcom, makes a happy political home (his Oak BayGordon Head riding takes in Foul Bay, which seems entirely appropriate.)
Pumping all sorts of crap — the actual and the figurative — straight into the ocean results in sea life near the discharge pipelines getting a full dose of what humans flush down the toilet. Recent testing on the mollusks revealed high concentrations of pharmaceuticals from painkillers, birth control, antibiotics and antidepressant medications.
Maybe Victoria should adopt Not In My Backyard as the provincial capital motto, because that very attitude resulted in decades of squabbling about the location of an obviously needed wastewater treatment plant, the lack of which makes the famed Inner Harbour the most polluted waterway in B.C. The unofficial mascot was once a six-foot turd called Mr. Floatie.
Thankfully for the mollusks, and for anyone brave enough to take a water taxi around the harbour, it appears such a facility will finally be build by 2020. Just hold your nose until then.
Actually keep holding it when it comes to Weaver, whose minuscule caucus (there’s him and two buddies, also from the Island) holds the balance of power in B.C., which allows him to make the current government dance around to his merry tune when it comes to the relentless legal nitpicking objections to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion planned to carry Alberta crude to tidewater.
The rallying cry is opposition to a resulting need for more tankers to move this oil to Asia. However, the internationally well-funded campaign’s real aim is to keep bitumen from the oilsands landlocked. After all, the planned pipeline going the other direction — Energy East — fell afoul of the same type of protesters, even though that would have replaced foreign oil arriving by — you guessed it — tanker.
Still, if the threat of more tankers and the increased possibility of huge spills threatening ocean waters is the reason for the opposition, then shouldn’t we actually look at how many major spills the B.C. coast has suffered in living memory?
The answer would be none. The nearest would be the infamous Esso Valdez back in 1989, when 37,000 tonnes of oil entered Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Since then, the west coast, all the way down to Mexico, hasn’t suffered a single big spill — innovations such as double-hulled tankers and better navigational systems helping enormously.
In fact, worldwide, the environmental threat from spilled crude has diminished remarkably. The worst spill this century happened in 2002, when the Prestige allowed 63,000 tonnes of oil to enter waters off Spain. That ranked a lowly 20th on the all-time list of such incidents.
Of course, any spill is one too many, but the threat is now at minuscule levels despite the huge increase in oil being transported worldwide. But facts are inconvenient. Otherwise, the northern horse mussel wouldn’t spend its days happier than any clam, whether it likes it or not.
The environmental threat from spilled crude has diminished remarkably.