EDITOR,
On Aug. 4, 2006, the Westwood Anette cargo ship was cut open in Squamish. Twenty-nine thousand litres of fuel oil (diesel) was spilled into Howe Sound. Two days later, I started working with Quantum Environmental on the clean-up. It was disgusting! The smell, the sight -disgusting! As I started raking gravel on the third day, I burped. All I could taste was diesel fuel. I damn near hurled! Disgusting! I was the first person to operate a week-whacker in the estuary. Everything everywhere was covered in black. The fuel smothered it all black. Disgusting! The fuel was cleaned from Woodfibre mill, from the south of Britannia Beach to far, far into the estuary. We raked gravel, cut down the estuary; pressure-washed everything from the shore, the rocks, to the underside of the dock and the ship. All of it was covered in black! All I could see or smell was fuel oil.
I would come home, shower, get clean. But still, all I or my roommates could smell was diesel... smell that came from me! It was disgusting.
I worked for the month of august, with only four days off. Then I returned to Seycove Community School for the beginning of the school year. We removed a huge percentage of the oil, but far from everything. There was no way to get it out without removing the estuary, grass, roots and all. I'm sure it's still there today!
My hope is that we Canadians, British Columbians, will join together and stop the madness of these pipelines, ships and pollution. This is an earthquake zone, and we're supposedly due for a major one, maybe one as large or larger than the one that just hit Japan, with a tsunami just as harsh.
Will Stephen Harper, his senators or cabinet, or Christy Clark, her cabinet and MLAs, clean up an oil spill? How about their children and grandchildren? Will they come and clean an oil spill? Likely not -it's too disgusting! Over the first days of the Squamish oil spill, I saw First Nations women crying, praying for Mother Earth.
Please stop this madness before it goes any further.
Michael Erb
Brackendale
