It's 14-days in a Washington state jail for Seong Ug Sin convicted of commanding a vessel in the Juan de Fuca strait while drunk and without any navigation maps. Captain Sin was found tipsy when the U.S. Coast Guard boarded the ship for routine inspections.
Apparently the skipper had managed to navigate his 180-metre freighter through Puget Sound and beneath the Tacoma Narrows bridge, again without any charts. Captain Sin was also given a six month ban on operating a ship in U.S. waters. Guess that means he'll still be able to work in Canadian waters.
Showing posts with label oil tankers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil tankers. Show all posts
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Gunter Makes the Case For No Oil Tanker Terminal in BC
I know he didn't mean to warn us about the Athabasca Tar Sands but the Edmonton Journal's Lorne Gunter has never been the sharpest pencil in the box. In his latest drivel piece on the Deepwater Horizon debacle, Gunter defends offshore drilling platforms as inherently safer than oil tankers when it comes to spills:
According to a study by the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, offshore drilling remains less damaging than shipping oil by tanker.
"Since 1991, oil tankers have still spilled three times as much oil as offshore platforms and more than twice as much as pipelines."
So there you have it, courtesy of CanWest's own Lorne Gunter. Bad as offshore oil rigs are, they're nothing compared to oil tankers when it comes to oil spills. Ergo, thanks to Lorne, no oil tanker terminal on the BC coast should be built to ship Tar Sands oil to Asia, right?
Of course this is just another example of Gunter getting tripped up by his rank ideology. Tankers may have spilled three times as much oil as offshore platforms but that's peanuts when you compare the amount of oil they deliver from the oil fields of the Middle East to the piddly amounts produced by our local, offshore rigs. Gunter is comparing apples to oranges but handily making the case against a BC oil seaport anyway.
The man may not be sentient but, at times, he's damned handy.
According to a study by the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, offshore drilling remains less damaging than shipping oil by tanker.
"Since 1991, oil tankers have still spilled three times as much oil as offshore platforms and more than twice as much as pipelines."
So there you have it, courtesy of CanWest's own Lorne Gunter. Bad as offshore oil rigs are, they're nothing compared to oil tankers when it comes to oil spills. Ergo, thanks to Lorne, no oil tanker terminal on the BC coast should be built to ship Tar Sands oil to Asia, right?
Of course this is just another example of Gunter getting tripped up by his rank ideology. Tankers may have spilled three times as much oil as offshore platforms but that's peanuts when you compare the amount of oil they deliver from the oil fields of the Middle East to the piddly amounts produced by our local, offshore rigs. Gunter is comparing apples to oranges but handily making the case against a BC oil seaport anyway.
The man may not be sentient but, at times, he's damned handy.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Coastal First Nations Slam Alberta Oil Tanker Route
Their message is clear, we've seen what's happening today in the Gulf of Mexico and, "if Enbridge brings oil tankers to British Columbia's coast, we will wake up one day to the same kind of disaster on our own shores."
Coastal First Nations officers Art Sterritt and Gerald Amos don't pull any punches in their editorial in today's Vancouver Sun.
...Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline would carry the world's dirtiest oil from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, to be loaded onto foreign-bound supertankers. Some 225 tankers per year would attempt to navigate the waters where a passenger ferry sank in 2006, and where last year a freighter ran aground.
...Like the Exxon Valdez, the impact of a spill so close to shore would be swift, devastating and would last for generations.
Our people are fishing people. While many Canadians do not know where the food they buy comes from, we still rely on traditional foods such as wild salmon, halibut and shellfish. We thrive despite high unemployment because we have access to these foods. Lose this, and we lose our way of life.
...With Enbridge's tankers lurking in the shadows, the future of the area we pledged to protect hangs in the balance.
Because it threatens the basis of our culture, Coastal First Nations firmly oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. In accordance with traditional laws, we declared a ban on the transport of oilsands crude oil through our territories.
It is a declaration we will defend by whatever means necessary. It is one Enbridge would be wise to abide by.
The Campbell faux-Liberal government is already plunging in popularity thanks to its excessively business-oriented policies. A petition to force Campbell to put his HST (harmonized sales tax) to a referendum is said to already have enough signatures even with two months of canvassing time remaining. This oil tanker venture and Campbell's support for offshore oil exploration and offshore drilling could very easily be the final nails in his political coffin. The sooner he's gone, the better for British Columbians and our province.
Coastal First Nations officers Art Sterritt and Gerald Amos don't pull any punches in their editorial in today's Vancouver Sun.
...Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline would carry the world's dirtiest oil from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, to be loaded onto foreign-bound supertankers. Some 225 tankers per year would attempt to navigate the waters where a passenger ferry sank in 2006, and where last year a freighter ran aground.
...Like the Exxon Valdez, the impact of a spill so close to shore would be swift, devastating and would last for generations.
Our people are fishing people. While many Canadians do not know where the food they buy comes from, we still rely on traditional foods such as wild salmon, halibut and shellfish. We thrive despite high unemployment because we have access to these foods. Lose this, and we lose our way of life.
...With Enbridge's tankers lurking in the shadows, the future of the area we pledged to protect hangs in the balance.
Because it threatens the basis of our culture, Coastal First Nations firmly oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. In accordance with traditional laws, we declared a ban on the transport of oilsands crude oil through our territories.
It is a declaration we will defend by whatever means necessary. It is one Enbridge would be wise to abide by.
The Campbell faux-Liberal government is already plunging in popularity thanks to its excessively business-oriented policies. A petition to force Campbell to put his HST (harmonized sales tax) to a referendum is said to already have enough signatures even with two months of canvassing time remaining. This oil tanker venture and Campbell's support for offshore oil exploration and offshore drilling could very easily be the final nails in his political coffin. The sooner he's gone, the better for British Columbians and our province.
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