Greenpeace Sails With First Nations To Oppose Arctic Oil Tankers

A massive Greenpeace ship will depart the Port of Vancouver on Tuesday with a cross-Canada Aboriginal delegation. The delegation seeks to raise alarm about the potential surge in U.S. oil tankers set to ply past British Columbia's coastlines in the future, should Shell's Arctic oil drilling plans go full steam ahead.

For ten days, the international environmental organization, active in 40 countries, will sail its largest ship -the Esperanza -to B.C. coastal communities such as Haida Gwaii to spread the word about the increased oil spill risks to the province's coastline that could result from Arctic drilling.

Audrey Siegl (ancestral name sχɬemtəna:t), of the Vancouver-area Musqueum Nation, will be among the indigenous participants. The First Nations drummer is well known for her anti-oil rally activities, from Burnaby Mountain to Northern Gateway marches.

"We have bitumen tankers looking to come through already -and now American Arctic oil drilling tankers? No. I say no to this the same way I say no to LNG, no to Kinder Morgan, and no to the tar sands. They're all connected," she said.

The Greenpeace voyage comes just as Shell receives a key U.S. approval this month to start exploratory drilling in July off the coast of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea. The northern area is bursting with marine mammals, such as polar bears and belugas, but also contains massive petroleum riches.

Shell Oil is investing billions of dollars in the Arctic, and says the polar region contains 13 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil, and 40 per cent of its yet-to-be-found natural gas. In Alaska, Shell proposes to drill into a sea bed 42 metres below the waves at a drill site 112 kilometres from the village of Wainwright, using its drill ship, Noble Discoverer, and submersible Transocean Polar Pioneer.

"The recent approval of our Revised Chukchi Sea Exploration Plan is an important milestone and signals the confidence regulators have in our plan," Shell spokesperson Jeff Mann said in an email.

Hundreds of Arctic oil tankers passing B.C.'s coast.

But for those aboard the Greenpeace vessel, the concern is that Arctic drilling could result in hundreds of new oil tankers sailing past British Columbia's coastlines. Shell declined to say exactly how many there would be.

Energy analysts expect Alaskan waters could produce one million barrels of oil per day. The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, by comparison, would pump half that, and calls for four hundred tankers annually.

Greenpeace believes the oil tankers would pass the entire B.C. coastline on their way to U.S. terminals in Washington, California and Texas. And if any of the tankers ran aground, like the Exxon Valdez did in 1989, it would have devastating environmental consequences, the group says.

Candace Campo, of the Sechelt First Nation (shíshálh), was a young adult when the Exxon Valdez disaster occurred. She doesn't want more oil tankers nearing B.C.'s shores.

"We know that right now there is heavy traffic from oil coming down the coastline, and with the Arctic drilling, it's going to magnify and increase traffic," Campo said.

Scientists are already predicting that in the next few years the first ice-free summer in the Arctic will occur for the first time in millennia. Therefore, opening up the polar region to seize even more climate-warming petroleum will make greenhouse gas reduction targets pointless, a Greenpeace spokesperson said.

"I think it's psychopathic that they are going after this Arctic oil rather than seeing the warming Arctic as a warning sign of a planet in crisis," Arctic campaign director Jessica Wilson said in Vancouver on Friday.

The Greenpeace campaign has heated up south of the border, too. Shell's Arctic fleet was beset by protests in Seattle on Saturday. Many environmentalists are not convinced the company can effectively clean up oil spills in the harsh underwater conditions of the far north.

"There's no proven way to clean up oil in any kind of water, let alone ice-filled waters," said Wilson. "BP said themselves they only recovered five per cent of the oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico."

Embarrassing setbacks have beset Shell's Arctic program. In 2012, its giant Kullukdrill rig ran aground in Alaska, and in that same year, its emergency oil-spill-recovery equipment test failed spectacularly in the tranquil Puget Sound waters near Seattle.

But the oil giant now appears to have an important ally. President Obama said last week that he's satisfied the oil company can safeguard the environment.

"Shell had to go back to the drawing board, revamp its approach. And the experts at this point have concluded that they have met those standards," Obama said.

Wilson said Greenpeace is now attempting to "Keystone-ify" public concern - meaning, shift popular oil opposition from pipeline projects to what's going on in the far north.

Greenpeace activists are infamous for dramatic protests. They've held protests on top of Ottawa's parliament building, and on sea drill rigs, where they've unfurled anti-oil banners. An Esperanza crew member was one of the thirty Greenpeace activists arrested at gunpoint in Russian waters for attempting to scale an oil drilling platform.

Canada, the U.S., Norway, Greenland (Denmark), Russia, are also actively developing or looking for oil in the Arctic.

The aboriginal delegation on the Greenpeace journey includes:

Audrey Siegel, Musqueum Nation, B.C.

Candace Campo, Sechelt Nation, B.C.

Taylor George Hollis, Squamish Nation, B.C.

Victor Thompson, Haida Nation, B.C.

Robert Holler, Anishinabe Nation, Ontario

Micheal Auger, Woodland Cree, Alberta