Data is starting to come in from the nearly 2, 000 bright yellow drift cards that were dropped dropped between Oct. 24 and 30 along nine points from the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge in Vancouver to Juan de Fuca Strait off Victoria, BC, mimicking a regular tanker route.
The study is a direct response to the Kinder Morgan proposal for an expanded pipeline, which could increase oil-tanker traffic along the BC coast by five times. Based on data from Kinder Morgan, that could mean 408 annual tanker visits by 2017, up from 71 in 2010.
With increased traffic comes increased risk, said the organizations conducting the drift-card study. They said BC is not prepared for an oil spill, lacks liability coverage and doesn’t know how to deal with the diluted bitumen, a form of crude oil, carried in the tankers.
The drift cards are part of a joint study by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the Georgia Strait Alliance to look at the potential spread of an oil spill in the Salish Sea. Each card states the purpose of the study and asks those who find them to contact the organization so they can plot the location on a map at salishseaspillmap.org.
To view the map click HERE
