What is happening in Alaska will have a direct effect in B.C. on many levels. Currently there is a moratorium on gas and oil exploration and drilling in the Queen Charlotte Islands and other areas of the B.C. coast. It is reported that the potential recoverable offshore oil reserves in British Columbia are 3.3 billion barrels, worth about $60 billion.

This moratorium too will most likely be lifted when the current government is replaced in the forthcoming provincial election here.

Despite the current governments' claim to ecological responsibility for imposing the ban, as is noted in this government publication here, oil spills are only deemed of high risk in those areas which do not have an actual voting populace, when the inevitable spills are lapping at the doorways of expensive waterfront houses. Risk is deemed low when only wildlife and a few first nations people are affected.

Marine transport is not the only area of risk, as residents of the northern B.C. town of Chetwynd discovered last summer, when a problem one of the major pipelines pumped crude into their drinking water reservoir and the formerly pristine Pine River.

Changing to an alternative fuel source as a solution will never occur in time to avert another inevitible disaster in the Pacific Northwest.