‘This could be oil’: Drift cards tossed into Fraser River to simulate oil spill

August 26, 2014

By Emily Jackson
Metro

Four hundred plywood drift cards stamped with the warning “This could be oil” were tossed into the Fraser River Tuesday to simulate how far oil could travel if it spilled out of the proposed expansion to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.

Researchers from Raincoast Conservation and the Georgia Strait Alliance travelled by boat past seals and osprey to dump the drift cards – don’t worry, they’re biodegradable and marked with non-toxic paint – from four spots spanning the river where Kinder Morgan plans to twin its existing pipeline near the Port Mann Bridge.

In 50 minutes, the drift cards travelled three and a half kilometres downstream…

To read the full article please visit the Metro Vancouver website.

You can help

Raincoast’s in-house scientists, collaborating graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors make us unique among conservation groups. We work with First Nations, academic institutions, government, and other NGOs to build support and inform decisions that protect aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and the wildlife that depend on them. We conduct ethically applied, process-oriented, and hypothesis-driven research that has immediate and relevant utility for conservation deliberations and the collective body of scientific knowledge.

We investigate to understand coastal species and processes. We inform by bringing science to decision-makers and communities. We inspire action to protect wildlife and wildlife habitats.