Pipeline is not worth the risks

Dear Editor: I’m not the first one to say this, nor the last, but it needs to be repeated until someone gets the message.

A pipeline to the West Coast is a bad idea. The only advantage of pipelines is that it allows the corporation to make more money quicker. They add diluents, cocktails of 30 or more chemicals whose ingredients are kept secret, but are known to contain benzene, a human carcinogen, to allow the bitumen to flow through.

Kinder Morgan has had 82 spills in Canada since 1961. The proposed pipeline and tanker route travels vital salmon habitats in the Fraser River. The Fraser River is also on a fault line, which means it is at high risk for future earthquakes, the cleanup of which, with the water-soluble diluents, becomes a much bigger issue than for regular bitumen, 90 per cent of which floats on water.

The traffic from tankers also poses a threat to already dwindling whale populations. In the past, we have always let companies take advantage of our ignorance of possible problems, exploiting our health, and our resources, for profit. Companies will always pretend their product is not dangerous, I think here of doctors advocating smoking, of Ford Motors advocating leaded fuel.

We have the facts, we know the risks. Why are we willing to take them when there is nothing for us to gain, and everything to lose? Alyssa Campbell Kelowna