We would like to sincerely thank you for joining Premier Horgan and First Nation of both the United States and Canada in the fight in efforts to join together against Trans Mountain expansion Pipeline. We are writing to express gratitude for these past efforts and ask you for a specific future actions to safeguard our Salish Sea from the 86% chance of oil-spill and our climate from a climate bomb greater than either Keystone XL or Dakota Access.




Specifically we are asking you to stand up for Washingtonians and the first peoples who stewarded this region for millennia by using your power as Governor of Washington, to direct the Department of Ecology to identify and set a world class clean-up metric for any oil spilled into our beautiful Salish Sea that is befitting of its value to all of its inhabitants.




Since the discovery of the tar sands in Alberta, we have seen a gradual increase in tar sands traffic from Vancouver BC through the busy and narrow straits of the Salish Sea. While some of the tar sands transported by the Trans Mountain pipeline enters the Puget Sound Pipeline en route to Washington’s four northwestern refineries, all tankers originating at the Trans Mountain terminus in Burnaby destined for domestic or international markets must transit Washington’s territorial waters.




Now, our region is in the proposed pathway of a tar sands oil project bigger than either the Keystone XL or Dakota Access pipeline. If built, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline would increase dangerous tanker traffic from 5 tankers to 35 tankers transiting sensitive ecosystems every month, increasing our risk of oil spill that has already been described as inevitable. Even worse, emergency responders to a tar sands spill cannot act until the lighter and more explosive fractions of the diluted bitumen, the diluents themselves, have evaporated. This means no cleanup activity for potentially 12 hours, during which time the heavy hydrocarbons sink in the water column and are distributed by subsurface currents. Existing numerical planning standards, for example those for the San Juan Islands and Padilla Bay are, put simply, impossible to meet in the event of a spill of diluted bitumen, (San Juan County: https://tinyurl.com/y94bwlaw Padilla Bay: https://tinyurl.com/y8tphull).




The difficulty of recovering spilled tar sands presents unique and immitigable risks to our salmon fisheries, marine ecosystems, and quality of life.




Facing similar uncertainty arising from these new risks, the province of British Columbia has mandated a rigorous and holistic scientific review of the marine oil spill recovery potential, methods, and technologies specifically as they pertain to tar sands or diluted bitumen cargoes.




Recent tragedy gives us even more reason to act with urgency. The Sanchi disaster in the East China Sea is the worst tanker disaster in 35 years, and First Responders could do nothing to save the ship over weeks of it burning, exploding and sinking. The vessel was carrying condensate, effectively the same things as the diluent moving through our waters.




As authorized by RCW 88.46.060, the Department of Ecology has promulgated a set of numerical standards for the recovery of worst case scenario oil spills in chapter 173-182 WAC. Standards currently in place mandate very low recovery rates, often as little as 25% of the oil spilled in the first 48 hours of a response, and current regulations do not differentiate between the lighter floating oils our state has traditionally planned for and the challenging risks posed by new and heavier oil. The high level standards for the San Juan Islands and Padilla Bay referenced above, for example, assume that oil spilled will float sufficiently to be captured by booming and skimming.




We are asking that Washington State join British Columbia in preventing any new tar sands traffic from calling at Washington ports until we have conducted a rigorous scientific process specifically focused on the risks and spill recovery potential associated with tar sands oil. On conclusion of that process, a scientifically rigorous oil spill standard must be set to ensure that the carriers of tar sands shipments through our waters plan for and provide the maximum recovery of potential oil spills. Aligned with the proposed review in British Columbia, the process should endeavor to critically evaluate our existing numerical standards and determine whether available technology will be adequate to protect the health and safety of the people of the Salish Sea and the ecosystems on which they depend.