To the editor,
I’m sure there must be brilliant public relations professionals working behind the scenes, scripting distorted views of reality. Case in point, such PR tricksters have many of us believing that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is a necessity for the sake of our economy – which is so untrue.
Public relations copywriters of supposed ‘facts’ would have us believe – at the behest of big oil moguls – that a 20-fold increase of tanker traffic on our Salish Sea is nothing to concern ourselves with. After all, there’s the taxpayer-funded $1.5-billion ocean protection plan. It finances the emergency boats and crew that, we are told, can scoop up the viscous bitumen.
However, like what happened with the Kalamazoo spill in 2010, the heavy oil will sink to the bottom while the dilbit, highly toxic chemical fumes float in the air. After over seven years of attempted cleanup and dredging, Environmental Protection Agency officials estimate that roughly 700,000 litres of tar sands oil remains on the Kalamazoo River bottom. This is a well-documented tar sands catastrophe that even the cleverest managers of our perception can’t distort.
Joanne Schilling, Ladysmith
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The views and opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the writer and do not reflect the views of Black Press or the Nanaimo News Bulletin. If you have a different view, we encourage you to write to us or contribute to the discussion below.