Tina Winterlik: Great Bear Rainforest ENDANGERED by sunk tug!!

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Great Bear Rainforest ENDANGERED by sunk tug!!

Just got in from the wreck of the "Nathan E Stewart" -which has now sunk and is just hanging off its pins which connect it into the transom notch of its 10,000 dwt barge, "DBL 55." The tug was reportedly carrying 60,000 gallons of diesel, which is now spewing into the chuck, along with whatever bunker fuel etc it may have been carrying. I am predicting that , with a falling tide, and rising storm, the Nathan E Stewart and DBL 55 have now found their eternal resting place, and will be stuck there, indelibly polluting these magnificent waters well into the future...

BREAKING NEWS: A tanker barge tug sunk in Heiltsuk Territory this morning. Heiltsuk Tribal Council has just released the following statement on the potential environmental disaster unfolding in the Great Bear Rainforest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bear_Rainforest

The tug is currently still leaching fuel into the ocean, and it will likely we awhile before the full environmental impacts are known. We will provide updates as they become available.

For more background on the 10,000 ton tanker Nathan E. Stewart that has sunk, watch this short video: https://vimeo.com/127905057


https://www.facebook.com/PacificWild/photos/a.216579751693162.61686.151785794839225/1419634858054306/?type=3&theater

10,000 Ton Texas Tanker traveling the B.C. Coast from Ingmar Lee on Vimeo.

This video and info is from last year.

The Nathan E. Stewart/DBL 54 is an articulated tug/barge" (ATB) and is owned by the Texas-based Kirby Corporation, which is one of the largest petroleum product ATB operators in the USA. It travels back and forth up the B.C. Inside Passage by “special waiver" which exempts it from Transport Canada shipping regulations. These guide the movement of all other tankers operating in BC waters. As a result, it operates here with no Canadian pilots on board, it does not require escort tugs while maneuvering in Port Metro Vancouver, and most egregiously, it is allowed to travel north through Seymour Narrows and into the "voluntary tanker exclusion zone" that is the B.C. Inside Passage. As such, this unflagged foreign vessel blatantly flouts the concerns of the people of Canada, and operates here secretively without any social license whatsoever.

For more information, please sign up to my "10,000 Ton Tanker" Facebook page
*If you see the Nathan E. Stewart, take a picture with time and location and share on social media
#NathanEStewart #tankers #shipping @PortMertVan @Transport_gc