Canadian First Nation cleans up latest fuel spill mess

On the morning of October 13, Tracy Robinson, a hunter and fisherwoman living in the Heiltsuk First Nation community of Bella Bella, British Columbia, was preparing to go out on to the ocean, when the news reached her: An American tugboat and oil barge transiting Canadian waters had driven into a reef in nearby Seaforth Channel. Although the 100-metre fuel barge it pushed was empty, the tug carried more than 200,000 litres of diesel and other industrial oils that were now leaking into the Pacific.