Skip to content

Ship expertise questioned

Editor: Re: Anti-oil rally strikes MLA, Oct. 25

Editor:

Re: Anti-oil rally strikes MLA, Oct. 25.

Protest spokesperson Elizabeth Kearns seems to know how tankers operate.

What are her credentials to be able to “see how narrow it is,” with her reference to the passage in Kitimat?

Is she employed as a ship’s officer? Did she read the chart – not a map – for her assessment? Did she assess the passage from the bridge of one of the ships travelling our coast with a professional mariner to help her with her vision? Does she even know the measurement of the narrowest stretch (0.9 of a mile) and the depth of the water (500 metres there) to aid her in her “ludicrous” statement.

If Elizabeth does come with a master mariner’s ticket, I apologize for my questions.

If not, how on earth would she know what the professional mariners that work our coast can do?

Before saying to the press statements that appear to have no factual detail, please do your homework, Ms. Kearns.

Or simply stand on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge for a day or two and observe what a wonderful job our mariners do in our “narrow” local waters with tankers going in and out all the time for the past 60 years!

Lori Ragan, Surrey