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Oil spill tracking card found in Tlell

A Sandspit resident looking for agates in Tlell is the finder of a card that shows just where an oil spill on the Kinder Morgan tanker route from Vancouver to the Pacific might end up.In October, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the Georgia Strait Alliance dropped 1,000 bright yellow plywood cards in Burrard Inlet and near Victoria, at locations where an oil spill might occur. The tanker route runs from Vancouver through the Gulf Islands and out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.The cards carry a simple message: "this could be oil", and Sian Nalleweg of Sandspit found one on a beach in Tlell, farther than any other from where it was dropped."Mine was found near Wiggins Road in Tlell on February 5," Ms Nalleweg said, "of course we had a little bit of an easterly.""'This could be oil' jumped out at me when I first saw the card," she said, "It is an unfortunate event that will affect us all on Haida Gwaii". She found the card just before 10:30 am on the beach just below the berm at the end of Wiggins Road, a beach she and her partner Al Grosvenor often check out for agates and tsunami debris.Ms Nalleweg's card is number R-26 and is by far the farthest from where they were dropped. Most were found near the drop sites, with one as far north as northern Vancouver Island, and a few near Campbell River and Tofino.Another set of cards was just dropped on February 10, with none found so far.Check out the websitewww.salishseaspillmap.orgUS energy company Kinder Morgan plans to twin its existing pipeline which ends in Vancouver, putting over 400 tankers a year through the Salish Sea. The pipeline, built in 1953, carries Alberta petroleum products to the west coast of both Canada and the US.