CoASt, Communities Against Super Tankers is an informal group made up of a diverse cross section of islanders on Haida Gwaii who are concerned about the consequences of tanker traffic on the West Coast of BC. We come from the following communities:
Old Massett, Masset, Port Clements, Tlell, Skidegate, Queen Charlotte, Sandspit
We have formed again to face the latest threat to our food supply and subsistence on Haida Gwaii posed by Enbridge’s proposal to run a bitumen and solvent pipeline from Alberta, through the Rockies and the Coastal Range, to a tanker port to be built in Kitimat. To learn more about how absurd and unsafe this proposal is for thousands of livelihoods in BC, please refer to the information pages on this website, and other helpful resources like pipeupagainstenbridge.ca.
CoASt is a revival of the original Coalition Against Super Tankers that first opposed tanker traffic on behalf of Haida Gwaii in the late 1970s. The original members of the group could never have imagined the size of the tankers that are on the horizon for the Coast: 1/2 a kilometre long with 10 times the capacity of the Exxon Valdez. Imagine a spill from Alaska to California…
Imagine this behemoth navigating five 90 degree turns in the Douglas Channel
Communities Against Super Tankers 
Perhaps a fleet of tugs, some of which would accompany each tanker through the passages, would provide a higher level of confidence. Haida and other people intimately familiar with the routes could pilot the tugs and, in worst case scenarios, keep tankers with mechanical problems off the rocks?
This is just insane! Whoever planned that might have played a bit too much computer games, where you “just” press the button to turn the corner (and the higher the level, the more fun)… this is real life with real humans (and their errors), real nature (with real weather)…!
I really wonder how many of the ones who came up with the idea have actually travelled themselves through this area by boat and experienced the waters there.