Save the last orcas! Tell the world’s largest banks not to fund pipelines

There are now just 75 Southern Resident Orcas left in the wild. 

Last week, there were 76.

These distinct endangered orcas are already on the brink, yet they’re facing another threat: the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.2

Today, barely a week after it was announced that one of the last remaining Southern Resident Orcas is presumed dead, Greenpeace USA released a new report documenting the communities, marine life, and about $62.4 billion in economic activity that are under threat from the increased tar sands tanker traffic the Trans Mountain Expansion Project would bring to the Pacific Coast.3

We released our new report from the Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise as we travel the tanker route in the Salish Sea. These waters and the entire West Coast could see a seven-fold increase in tar sands tanker traffic if the project is built, creating a tar sands tanker superhighway and making a tar sands oil spill virtually inevitable. Even if these tankers never spill, the noise of the tanker superhighway alone could push the Southern Resident orcas to extinction.

This noise pollution and potential for spills further put these endangered orcas at the brink of extinction. Learn more about orcas and how we can save them in our new video!

And it’s not just the orcas that are at risk. The climate, the water, and Indigenous rights are also at stake. This pipeline expansion does not have the consent of many of the First Nations whose land this pipeline crosses and whose waters would be impacted by this project.

Thanks to public pressure, HSBC has scaled back financing for tar sands projects. Together, we’ve made this bank and others aware of just how risky these pipelines projects are — for all of us.

If there’s a spill, miles of beaches could be destroyed, including so many spectacular creatures, like orcas, whales and the world’s largest species of octopus. It’s too much of a risk to take.

Right now, I‘m on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise in the Pacific Northwest. We’re here to support the massive, Indigenous-led resistance to pipeline projects and the horrifying tactics of some of the companies that build them — like Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), whose private security contractors used pepper spray and attack dogs on peaceful Water Protectors and pipeline opponents at Standing Rock.

Together, we need to show ETP that its tactics of intimidation will not work; that new pipelines will not be built; that our Wave of Resistance is unstoppable. 

The last thing endangered orcas and the Pacific Northwest needs is new pipelines. Watch our new video about orcas and the Wave of Resistance and share with your friends!

- Rachel Butler, Tar Sands Campaigner, Greenpeace USA

1. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/orca-death-brings-southern-resident-whale-population-to-lowest-level-in-34-years/
2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/16/canada-oil-pipeline-expansion-killer-whales-kinder-morgan 
3. https://prod.greenpeaceusa.info/usa/reports/tar-sands-tanker-super-highway-threatens-pacific-coast-waters/

Tell Banks: Stop Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline

Homes evacuated after ExxonMobil oil pipeline spill in Arkansas

22 banks have just agreed to finance Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion to the tune of $5.5 billion Canadian. The expansion will be a disaster for Indigenous rights and the environment. It would make the pipeline able to transport more oil than either the Dakota Access Pipeline or the Keystone Pipeline.

Email the CEOs of these banks and tell them to stop financing Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and all tar sands projects. 

The Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and Sto:lo First Nations, whose territories cover most of Metro Vancouver Area, are among the nine First Nations and Tribes currently in litigation against the project. The Coast Salish, Sto:lo, Nlaka'pamux, and Secwepemc Nations, whose territories cover more than half the length of the pipeline, have also filed legal challenges to the project. The Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, which comprises more than 120 First Nations and Tribes, stands in committed opposition to all tar sands pipelines crossing their traditional lands and waters, and has called for an international campaign to divest from any financial institution that funds them.

At the TD Bank shareholder meeting in March, Chief Serge Simon of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake said "Coordinated Indigenous opposition from Quebec to British Columbia to North Dakota will stop the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline one way or another." But TD Bank didn’t listen to this warning — instead they poured more money into the project. They weren’t counting on resistance to tar sands pipelines across North America growing stronger every day.

This pipeline would cut through the Canadian Rocky Mountains, crossing and threatening countless watersheds that feed into the Fraser River. It would dump out on the Burrard Inlet near Vancouver, meaning a sevenfold increase in oil tanker traffic — from five to 34 ships every month — threatening marine life, including the endangered orcas of the Salish Sea.

The tar sands oil that this pipeline would carry is one of the most carbon intensive fuels on the planet. Studies show that the Trans Mountain expansion would add 8.8 metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere a year — making catastrophic climate change more of a reality every day.

And the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline already has a disgraceful track record — 82 leak incidents, including four major oil spills. 

- Ruth Breech, Rainforest Action Network

Sources:

1. 28 major banks warned not to finance Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, Rainforest Action Network
2. The Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion
3. B.C. First Nations unite in fight against Trans Mountain pipeline, The Globe and Mail
4. Kinder Morgan Canada completes IPO for Trans Mountain Pipeline, FuelFix / The Houston Chronicle
5. Spill History, Trans Mountain
6. Big oil v orcas: Canadians fight pipeline that threatens killer whales on the brink, The Guardian