NEB should consider pollution from ships

Re: “Pipeline pitch to draw fire at Victoria stop this week,” Aug. 21.

One issue that has had no voice in the National Energy Board’s reprise of the Kinder Morgan pipeline review is the health-hazard component of trans-ocean oil transport.

Kinder Morgan plans at least a threefold increase in shipped oil volume and thus Burnaby tanker visits. This guarantees much worse air pollution for the whole Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley airshed.

Giant ships, whether oil tankers and even the newest fancy cruise ships, have almost no international fuel-pollution regulations. They burn bunker diesel, a black, heavy, sludge-like stuff that is 2,000 times more deleterious than what I feed my old Mercedes 240D. Bunker pollutes with sulphur; soot and particulate matter that embeds itself in human lungs, causing cardiopulmonary illnesses. Simple medical facts.

The Guardian reports that just one giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. So 15 such vessels emit as much pollution as today’s total global car inventory of about 750 million cars. There are today, apparently, 90,000 ships plying the world’s oceans, spewing this astronomical amount of pollution into our atmosphere right now.

This singular, simple fact should be all the NEB, or the federal government, needs to declare a final “no” to this costly charade. Jordan Ellis Nanaimo

Energy and the consumer society have caught our readers’ attention today. One letter-writer suggests politicians’ priorities are out of whack when it comes to traffic, while another says that the National Energy Board needs to take a hard look at...