This week, federal hearings into the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline have come to Prince Rupert to examine marine impacts and spill response. On Tuesday, Enbridge representatives were grilled on how they would compensate local fishermen if their gear were destroyed or damaged by passing tankers.
Against this backdrop, a new study conducted by University of British Columbia scientists and funded by the World Wildlife Fund concludes that a large spill would leave hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in a region where nearly 30 per cent of the local population draws some form of employment from the ocean economy.
Ngaio Hotte and U. Rashid Sumaila, researchers at UBC’s Fisheries Centre, examined the hit to fishing, tourism and marine transportation from two types of spills, a “medium impact” 63,000-barrel spill, and a “high impact” 257,000-barrel spill similar in size to the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Read the full article from the Globe and Mail.