Oil worries sweep Gulf of St. Lawrence

While much attention has been given to the deep oil well being drilled by Chevron hundreds of kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland, the Save Our Seas and Shores Coalition has been trying to stop similar exploration in shallower water much closer to the mainland.

Corridor Resources Inc. has been given the license to explore oil and gas resources in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in what is known as the Old Harry prospect, located midway between the Magdalen Islands and Cape Anguille in western Newfoundland.

And the folks who depend on fishing and tourism in the Gulf are not happy – especially as they watch the United States cope with the aftermath of the biggest oil spill in its history.

Additional excerpt:

Alarm bells sounded by Ms. Gorman have prompted a number of voices to join the call for a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

On Thursday, for instance, the Quebec chapter of the Sierra Club of Canada wrote to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, the regulatory agency that both promotes exploration and is responsible for its safety, to express its opposition to the enterprise.

“Quebec’s natural resources, in the broadest sense, are at the same risk as those of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI. Consequently, we hereby demand, in the strongest terms possible, an immediate moratorium to all hydrocarbons exploration and drilling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” the environmental group wrote.