Fool’s errand’: Why the Exxon Valdez looms large over the northern pipeline debate

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Fool’s errand’: Why the Exxon Valdez looms large over the northern pipeline debate –

by ahnationtalk on December 1, 202535 Views

December 1st 2025

The Exxon Valdez disaster happened more than 36 years ago off Alaska’s coast, but the catastrophic oil spill still looms over plans for a pipeline from Alberta to the northern British Columbia coast.

Rick Steiner, a former academic who was one of the first on the scene of the infamous disaster and has closely studied its aftermath, said the risk of a repeat along the BC coast remained, despite improvements and assurances from industry to the contrary.

Both the Exxon Valdez and the more recent 2016 diesel spill from the sinking of the Nathan E. Stewart tugboat off BC’s central coast have been invoked by First Nations and environmental groups opposed to the prospect of easing a ban on tanker traffic, to service a potential northern pipeline. So too has this month’s grounding of a container barge near Bella Bella.