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Posted March 15, 2005
Stop Marine Seismic Testing Under the Guise of "Doing Science"!
Please WRITE and CALL now!!
Despite the wishes of an overwhelming majority of British Columbians who
participated in last year's federal public input process, the BC Liberal
government is still aggressively lobbying the federal Liberal government
to lift the decades-old moratorium on oil and gas development off BC's
coast.
BC Liberal Minister of Energy and Mines, Richard Neufeld, is in Ottawa
right now urging the federal government to allow seismic testing to
proceed under the guise of "filling in science gaps" about the marine
environment. Seismic testing, in which shock waves are blasted by air
guns through vast areas of the ocean in order to locate potential oil
deposits below the ocean floor, is one of the most environmentally
damaging activities for marine life. It has been implicated in fatal
whale strandings, large-scale fish kills, driving whales and fish away
from their feeding areas and migration routes, and damage to crabs,
squid and other marine life.
Allowing seismic testing is a "foot in the door" strategy to eventually
get the moratorium lifted. After companies spend hundreds of millions of
dollars to do seismic testing to locate potential oil deposits, it would
be very difficult at that point for the government to deny them the
right to drill "mere" exploratory wells to confirm the presence of these
deposits. The moratorium would have to be lifted to do so. Afterwards,
full-on commercial drilling would follow.
Coastal oil and gas drilling creates daily chronic pollution (the
discharge of toxic drilling fluids and muds, oil leakages) and major CO2
emissions, and it inevitably results in small and large oil spills that
devastate the birds, fish, and sea mammals. In terms of jobs, the
industry is not looking for unemployed loggers and fishermen in coastal
communities (as the BC government insinuates) but rather for specialized
skilled workers who they will generally hire from abroad.
Let the federal Liberal government know whether or not you want them to:
- Never issue any seismic testing permits for the BC coast,
- Never
engage in any joint "research" with the BC government that involves the
possibility of seismic testing off the BC coast.
- Ban coastal oil and gas development off BC's coast
- Listen to the results of their own public input process (the Priddle
Report) last spring, where 75% of British Columbians want to maintain
the moratorium.
Contact Prime Minister Paul Martin today by telephone, and let him know
that you want to keep the moratorium in place:
Prime Minister's Office: 613-992-4211
And send your message by email to key decision makers. Be sure to
include your home mailing address so they know where you're from:
Hon. David Emerson
Minister of Industry
Emerson.d@parl.gc.ca
Hon. John Efford
Minister of Natural Resources
Efford.j@parl.gc.ca
Hon. Stephane Dion
Minister of the Environment
Dion.s@parl.gc.ca
Hon. Geoff Regan
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
Regan.g@parl.gc.ca
Hon. Andy Scott
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Scott.a@parl.gc.ca
As importantly, write to your local federal Member of Parliament (MP)
who you can find at: http://www.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html
or call your local MP toll-free at: 1-866-599-4999
Also, don't forget to sign our online petition!
THANK YOU for taking a few minutes of your day to do this!
- Pearl Gottschalk and Ken Wu, WCWC Victoria
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