{"id":57744,"date":"2021-05-10T07:23:10","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T12:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=57744"},"modified":"2021-05-10T07:23:10","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T12:23:10","slug":"oil-tanker-spotted-in-risky-active-pass-alarms-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=57744","title":{"rendered":"Oil Tanker Spotted in Risky Active Pass Alarms Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oil Tanker Spotted in Risky Active Pass Alarms Activists<\/a><\/h3>\n

Officials promise no repeats. But advocates say the incident raises new concerns about regulation of tankers in BC\u2019s waters.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Narrow, twisting and busy Active Pass is no place for oil tankers, say advocates. But a loaded tanker travelled through the busy pass last month.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Ruth Hartnup<\/a>, Creative Commons licensed.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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On a calm Friday afternoon in late April, avid naturalist Barry Swanson was watching Active Pass from his home on Galiano Island, keeping an eye out for the pod of southern resident killer whales that swim by every couple of days.<\/p>\n

Instead of orcas, he was shocked to see an oil tanker traversing the narrow channel.<\/p>\n

The MV Kassos was sitting low in the water, its hull heavy with petroleum products bound for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Swanson is the co-founder of the non-profit Salish Sea Orca Squad, a group that works to raise awareness about the region\u2019s killer whales. In an interview with The Tyee, he says he was very concerned to see dangerous cargo being shipped through the narrow waterway.<\/p>\n

Active Pass sits between Mayne and Galiano Island. The channel is deep but narrow \u2014 302 metres wide at its skinniest \u2014 and features strong currents, rip tides and a blind corner, according to\u00a0Fisheries and Oceans Canada<\/a>. It\u2019s also a route favoured by BC Ferries, connecting Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay and the mainland to the Southern Gulf Islands.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s extremely unusual for an oil tanker to take Active Pass instead of the neighbouring Boundary Pass, favoured by almost all other commercial routes for its wider, calmer waters. Swanson says he\u2019s never seen an oil tanker take the pass before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a tanker travelling through these waters… there is always tremendous danger with dangerous goods being spilt in any amount. It would be a disaster for that to happen,\u201d Swanson says.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oil Tanker Spotted in Risky Active Pass Alarms Activists Officials promise no repeats. But advocates say the incident raises new concerns about regulation of tankers in BC\u2019s waters. Narrow, twisting and busy Active Pass is no place for oil tankers, say advocates. But a loaded tanker travelled through the busy pass last month.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Ruth Hartnup, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,103,25460,1729,1172,690,23884],"class_list":["post-57744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-michelle-gamage","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-oil-tankers","tag-risk","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57745,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57744\/revisions\/57745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}