Virtually everyone, whether for or against the Vancouver oil terminal, admits there’s risk. There are predictable hazards: crude inevitably leaked between origin and destination, chemicals released into the air, etc. There are less predictable but more catastrophic dangers: fiery derailment, breach in cargo ship, earthquake-toppled tanks. The permitting process doesn’t require the elimination of risk, only risk reduction. Permits merely quantify the amount of intentional damage and pollution that will be legal. Terminal “pros” minimize both the impact and the likelihood of risks. They would force us to gamble.
Who has the right to decide to put us, our Columbia River, our earth in peril — from small but cumulative damage or “the Big One”? There’s death by a thousand cuts, and there’s playing Russian roulette with only one chamber loaded but many pulls of the trigger. In this 21st century, whose voices should count the most? The people’s.
