It’s the jewel of Vancouver and one of our most popular tourist destinations, but an ugly picture is being painted of what would happen to Stanley Park in the event of an oil spill.

The park’s shoreline is occasionally visited by dolphins and whales, and it’s a home to countless birds and other species, but the Wilderness Committee says the continued expansion of oil tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet poses unacceptable risks to the park.

Kinder Morgan’s proposed trans-mountain pipeline expansion could bring more than 300 oil tankers into Vancouver harbour each year.

A new report by the Wilderness Committee indicates a spill would have a devastating impact, not only on the park and those who use it, but also on the wildlife and the varied ecosystems.

“It is a very real risk,” says Ben West with the committee. “With Kinder Morgan’s new pipeline proposal, we could see an increase from about 80 tankers we have in the Inlet right now to about 300-400 tankers passing through Burrard Inlet, each one of them carrying about three times as much as was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.”

The report claims Kinder Morgan’s proposal makes Stanley Park a target for a handful of reasons.

First, the tide carries anything that dumps into the Georgia strait or Burrard Inlet directly to its shores. The other issue is the type of oil being transported.

“It is a much heavier type of oil that is blended with some very toxic chemicals,” says West. “If you have a spill of this stuff, these toxins evaporate and the heavier oil actually sinks to the bottom and ends up in the sediment.”

The park's ecology society says a spill would mean long term devastation to sea life, birds, flora and faunae.

“I don’t think that this park would look anything like it does today,” says Robyn Worcester with Stanley Park Ecology Society. “It would be completely changed. And the bald eagles and the great blue herons that we see every day would be severely impacted by it.”

The Wilderness Committee’s document also asks if we are prepared for a spill, and whether there are resources in place for a cleanup.

“We really need to be prepared more than we are today,” says West. “Closing the coast guard station and getting rid of the oil spill responders – that is a step in the wrong direction. The Auditor General’s office a couple of years ago said we were ‘woefully unprepared’ to deal with an oil spill if one occurred. That was with the existing level of traffic and support. So we are actually seeing a potential massive increase in tanker traffic, and at the same time a reduction in our ability to respond to it.”

The Wilderness Committee will be hosting a public meeting tomorrow night in Yaletown to further explore the issue of oil tanker traffic. For more information, go here. 

Global BC asked Kinder Morgan to comment on the report, but they did not return our calls.