Oil Spill Assaults Kahnawakes Shoreline

Oil Spill Assaults Kahnawakes Shoreline

With the horrific disaster in the Gulf it is easy to forget that oil spills are occurring practically every day somewhere in the worlds oceans.

Most of these spills go unreported and unpunished. The frequency of the spills themselves have made oil spills pretty much routine until something like Deep Water Horizon happens and people are horrified by pictures of dying oil soaked birds and dolphins choking on crude spewing from their blowholes.

But every day, marine wildlife species die from oil.

A spill that happened last week came close to home for us at Sea Shepherd.

The Sea Shepherd ships are registered with the Mohawk Longhouse at Kahnawake and we fly the flag of the Five Nations of the Iroquois. Actually our ships fly two flags because due to non-recognition of the Iroquois as nation by other countries we also fly the flag of our official nation of registry the Netherlands.  

And so it was with dismay that we heard that 50,000 litres of fuel oil spilled into the St. Lawrence Seaway from the Canadian Pacific Steamship vessel Richelieu.

This is the first time in the 51-year history of the Seaway that an oil spill has closed the passage to shipping.

All of us at Sea Shepherd are concerned for the people of Kahnawake in the wake of this spill that has fouled their sacred land and poisoned the great river.