Dear Editor:
Re: Survey: Opposition to pipeline grows in city, Burnaby NOW, Sept. 24.
Before loaded tankers are allowed to leave theBurnaby terminal, they must be inspected for compliance with Canadian and international regulations, including a vessel's history, every 12 months.
All the tankers must be of double-hull construction and carry advanced navigational systems.
A loaded tanker must have a captain and two local pilots on the bridge, be escorted by three tugboats, one of them tethered to the tanker, are allowed to sail only during daylight hours and slack tide, and when the shipping lane is cleared off all other traffic.
Whole operation is monitored by the port's advanced airport type guidance system.
Once though First Narrows, two tugboats leave, while the third now untethered tug accompanies the tanker to East Point off Saturna Island, where it is again tethered to the tanker for trip through Boundary Pass and Haro Strait - and only then the two pilots and the tugboat leave.
To increase the tankers' safety even more, Kinder Morgan is proposing that tug escort continues all the way to the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait.
So ask yourself how these tankers could ever spill any oil.
Jerry Sklenar, North Vancouver
