Why a Gulf-style oil spill would be even more devastating in CanadaThe Toronto Star: What would happen in Canada's waters if an oil spill like the one in the Gulf Coast happened here? The answer is simple, according to Craig Stewart, director of the Arctic program for the World Wildlife Fund-Canada. 'Basically, we'd be screwed.'... ' We are drilling in even risker areas than the Gulf of Mexico.'...
Stewart thinks a spill is almost inevitable. But cleanup would be almost impossible... 'We would not be able to contain or clean up more than 5 per cent of spilled oil... And that's because in the Arctic we cannot clean up oil that flows under ice, and in the North Atlantic the rough seas would make it virtually impossible to contain the oil before it spread.'...
The deepest exploratory well in Canadian history being drilled right now in the Orphan Basin, 400 kilometers northeast of St. John's, Nfld, by Chevron... Three other exploratory deep-water wells are planned in Canada's Beaufort Sea over the next five years. One of them is being drilled by BP... 'The United States government estimates there is up to a 40 per cent chance of an oil spill in the American Beaufort Sea,' said Stewart... 'We would expect the same odds in Canada.'...
The U.S. regulates where drilling can take place. 'Canada does not,' he said. 'It's because we weakened our regulatory process over the past five years to remove requirements such as comprehensive environmental assessments, prescriptive safety equipment and relief-well capacity,' said Stewart.
The Toronto Star: Sandpipers and plovers, including red knots -- the latter of which is already on an endangered list -- all winter in South America and make their way to Canada's Arctic each spring. But first they stage -- or gather -- on the Louisiana coast to eat and rest before they head north. These birds were on the coast when the spill occurred... How many have died is anybody's guess... Other birds and fish will simply become part of a great wave of 'the disappeared.'...
But equally worrying... is the migratory birds' journey home this coming fall. The coastal shore of Louisiana is a staging area for their trip south as well. If the oil, which has seeped into the marshland, isn't cleaned up by the time the birds that escaped the spill the first time head south, the remaining oil could kill even more...
Also at risk are northern gannets, sea-feeding birds that life in the Gulf region during the winter and migrate to Canada's Atlantic coast in the summer, making their home off the coast of Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces in large colonies on cliffs... Many would have been killed by the oil... because the birds feed at sea... Part of a wave of wildlife lost forever.
