I would like to applaud Vincent Larsen for his well written opinion on the oil pipeline issue facing British Columbians. I have seen firsthand a powerful example of longterm ecological damage created by those who believe in, pursue, and laud oil exploration and development as viable to future generations. The massive spill spreading in the Gulf of Mexico was inevitable. Most of us are not privy, unless Albertan, to the scenes which come with oil exploration, but we know what happens when oil is spilled on the ground from personal use and the difficulty in cleaning this type of accident in a yard for example.
I differ from this average by growing up in the Houston area of south Texas. Not only did I see the actual result of polluted oily land in and around drilling fields, I also saw the constant barrage of small leaks and spills in the sludge and tar drifting onto beaches on the Gulf Coast. I learned to surf at the age of 12 or 13 and this became part of my lifestyle until I was 25. During that period I personally experienced hundreds of times when I would find tar-like sticky sludge on our beaches, my surfboard, boat hulls, bird carcasses, and my person. My cronies and I were always speculating on what would eventually happen as the companies' increased off-shore drilling. Government can say whatever it wishes you to hear but I saw this pollution firsthand. This took place between 35 and 45 years ago. I can imagine what is now laying on the floor of the gulf in heavy metals and ingested by the enormous fisheries along the coast.
Gordon Campbell has mismanaged our resource bases much as most, if not all our former leaders. He acts almost desperate in his need to ply the favour of big business in every area which directly affects the average citizen. We cannot allow the temporary construction benefits to a few, to establish a dangerous pollution legacy for the many. The entrenched attitudes of an industrialized cultures are leaving a frightening legacy for children of all cultures worldwide because the pollution from trying to operate a natural system by mechanization outweighs all benefit.
Dennis Ouellette
Prince George
