All posts by Common Sense Canadian

Report: Kinder Morgan Pipeline Operator Ignored Alarms During Recent Abbotsford Spill

December 3, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, KinderMorgan, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Vancouver Sun’s Gordon Hamilton on a new report from the National Energy Board which reveals operators of an Abbotsford tank farm, connected to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline, ignored alarms suring a recent spill for hours. (Nov. 28, 2012)

A National Energy Board report reveals that Trans Mountain Pipeline operators ignored warning alarms for three-and-a-half hours before responding to a gasket failure that resulted in a crude oil spill last January at its Sumas tank farm near Abbotsford.

It took six hours after the first warning sounded for Trans Mountain’s Sumas operator to arrive on the scene, where a spill was discovered. The crude oil did not escape from a containment area but noxious fumes were released into the atmosphere, affecting nearby residents.

The NEB estimates 90,000 litres of crude oil escaped.

This latest oil spill report comes at a time when pipeline owner Kinder Morgan is applying to expand the pipeline’s capacity from 300,000 barrels a year to 750,000 barrels to feed Asian markets. It has given the company a black eye, said Ben West, of the Wilderness Committee.

The report is critical of monitoring staff at Trans Mountain’s control centre at Edmonton, stating that the control centre operator failed to set an alarm within the required time limit of 15 minutes after an oil transfer had taken place at the Sumas tank farm the evening of Jan. 23, and then failed to respond to leak warning alarms that sounded every hour until the operator’s shift ended.

The NEB report finds that the leak was detected later than it should have been, the control centre operator did not follow procedures and there were improper alarm settings in a recently-installed data acquisition system. The board states Trans Mountain Pipeline has identified corrective actions to address the report’s findings.

“The board finds that these actions are appropriate to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents in the future.”

The report, which was released earlier this month, states that the operator assumed the alarms were being caused by high winds and did not send a field technician to investigate.
Further, the operator failed to understand that the volume in the tank was dropping.

Audio: Damien Gillis Talks Chinese FIPA, Fracking, Water on Nanaimo Radio

December 3, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, WATER, Water and HydrocarbonsAudio, FIPA, fracking, LNG, Oil and gas, Water and EnergyCommon Sense Canadian

Damien Gillis appeared recently on Nanaimo’s CHLY Radio to discuss a number of key political and energy issues in Canada. Gillis and host Rae Kornberger of A Sense of Justice cover the controversial proposed Canada-China trade deal and how that relates to energy and environmental issues in BC particularly. Included amongst these is natural gas fracking in northeast BC and the enormous volumes of fresh water required for these operations. Listen to the interview in two parts – as well as one highlight clip dealing with proposed water licences for fracking. (recorded Nov. 28, 2012)

Highlight Clip: Water Licences for Fracking (6 min)

Full Interview – Part 1: Chinese FIPA

Full Interview – Part 2: Water, Fracking and Fort Nelson First Nation

TransCanada Announces Yet Another Proposed Gas Pipeline to Kitimat – May Skirt Environmental Assessment

November 27, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, fracking, LNG, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from Larry Pynn in the Vancouver Sun on TransCanada’s proposed gas pipeline from Dawson Creek to Kitimat, BC, which leading environmental critics fear could avoid any environmental assessment under the new Harper regulatory regime – despite crossing 320 watercourses and affecting close to 300 different fish and wildlife species along the route. (Nov. 26, 2012)

TransCanada’s planned 650-kilometre natural gas pipeline to Kitimat would cross about 320 watercourses including the habitat of more than 100 species at risk, such as white sturgeon, woodland caribou and marbled murrelet, company documents show.

But under Conservative government changes to environmental laws, there’s no guarantee the Coastal GasLink project will undergo a federal environmental assessment.

“It’s a travesty of the public trust,” said Otto Langer, retired head of habitat assessment and planning for the federal fisheries department in B.C. and Yukon. “If we can’t have an environmental review on a project of this sort, this is proof we have gutted Canada’s environmental protection.”

The federal government is soliciting public comment on whether a federal assessment is warranted for the Coastal GasLink project.

Céline Legault, spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said that even if the project is not subject to a federal environmental assessment, “all applicable federal legislative, regulatory and constitutional requirements must be fulfilled.”

TransCanada has also submitted its project description to Victoria in advance of an official assessment by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office.

Langer dismissed the notion of a provincial assessment because the B.C. government is “giving the green light everywhere” to projects and that its environmental review process is too soft on industry.
“It’s pretty sad,” he said. “I don’t know how we slipped down this slope so quickly … and I don’t know where it will all end.”

B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office reported in August it had conducted assessments of 162 projects in the last 20 years. Only two were refused outright — Kemess North copper-gold mine in 2008, and the Ashcroft Ranch landfill project in 2011.

Coastal GasLink’s 1.2-metre-wide pipeline would extend from near Groundbirch, a community 40 kilometres west of Dawson Creek, to a proposed liquefied natural gas facility near Kitimat.

The buried pipeline would initially have a capacity of 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, which could be expanded to five billion cubic feet per day.

TransCanada documents outlining the pipeline project say it would cross four major drainages — the Peace, Fraser, Skeena and Kitimat rivers.

Of 286 species identified along the pipeline corridor, about 37 per cent (107 species) are recognized as species of management concern, Trans-Canada says.

Vancouver Sun Op-Ed: Rush to Deplete BC’s Gas Reserves Makes No Sense

November 27, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbonsfracking, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this op-ed in the Vancouver Sun by Ben Parfitt of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and renowned geologist and energy expert David Hughes, calling into question the BC Liberal Government’s policy for dramatically expanding natural gas development. (Nov. 14, 2012)

British Columbia is no petro state. So why do our political leaders insist that we are a global energy power?

At the University of Calgary last month, Premier Christy Clark boldly asserted that B.C. could one day export four trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, an amount that would put us on par with the output of Alberta’s oilsands industry.

Clark also said that over the next 30 years such exports “could add over a trillion dollars” to our province’s gross domestic product.

These sound like impressive numbers. But drill into them a bit, and they appear to be overstated, which raises critical questions.

What does exporting four trillion cubic feet of gas per year from B.C. actually mean, when viewed against what we have? What would the economic, energy security and climate consequences be of producing all that gas and more?

Consider the following facts.

Last year, B.C. produced a record 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — among the most water-depleting and energy-draining gas on earth, due to the deployment of highly controversial fracking technology.

The bulk of that gas went to Alberta to assist in the most water-depleting and energy-draining oil production on Earth. The next biggest slice went to the United States. What was left we used here in the province.

Presumably, we would not simply shut off the taps on these markets in the event that five new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals are built on our coast, and we begin shipping four trillion cubic feet of our gas to China, Japan and elsewhere. The government’s energy policies would therefore see gas extraction rates quintuple in northeastern B.C. — and probably a whole lot more because natural gas will likely be burned to power all those LNG plants.

What not enough of us have asked the government about is what such policies mean in terms of depleting our non-renewable fossil fuel resources and undermining our ability to meet our legislated greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.

Now is the time to do so. Here’s why.

According to British Columbia’s Oil and Gas Commission, our current reserves of natural gas total roughly 33 trillion cubic feet. Based on our premier’s projections of 4 trillion cubic feet per year of gas exports, we’d drain our entire reserves in just 8 years, or less if we continued to supply our own needs and those of our existing customers.

Now the likelihood is that we have far more gas. Estimated total resources for B.C. exceed 1,200 trillion cubic feet. But even optimistically assuming we can successfully extract one quarter of those resources, we’d be completely out of gas in 75 years — that is if we exported it all and left nothing for ourselves or for our neighbours.

Speaking of neighbours, Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board projects a 35 per cent decline in its own gas production over the next decade. And according to Canada’s National Energy Board, total Canadian natural gas production is down nearly 20% today from its peak in 2002.

The only western Canadian jurisdiction whose reserves and production show growth is here in B.C. And our elected leaders’ vision is that we rush whatever we have out of the country.
Premier Clark and B.C. Energy Minister, Rich Coleman, call their gas export plans a “strategy”. Their choice of wording is an insult both to the English language and to basic economics.

Monsanto and Cargill’s Plan for Soy-based Factory Aquaculture Industry

November 21, 2012Food, GMO, Oceans, Salmon Farming and AquacultureAquaculture, Food Security, Monsanto, SalmonCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from commondreams.org on corporate food behemoths Monsanto and Cargill’s plans for a large-scale, GMO soy-based aquaculture industry. (July 2, 2012)

Agribusiness behemoths including Monsanto and Cargill are set to cash in big from industrial fish farming or “aquaculture” as the soy industry spreads its reign to the seas, a new report from environmental and consumer watchdogs shows.

The new report, “Factory-Fed Fish: How the Soy Industry is Expanding Into the Sea” from Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe, shows how the use of soy as feed in aquaculture — branded as “sustainable” — is an environmental disaster, harming fish both wild and farmed as it pollutes the oceans and brings unknown effects to consumers eating the soy-fed fish.

“Our seas are not Roundup ready,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, referring to the 93 to 94 percent of soybeans produced in the United States that are genetically modified by Monsanto to tolerate the application of its Roundup herbicide.

The growing of Monsanto’s soy has led to an increase in the use of herbicides, the report states, and its planting on large scales has led to massive deforestation, which exacerbates climate change and displaces indigenous communities.

“Soy is being promoted as a better alternative to feed made from wild fish, but this model will not help the environment, and it will transfer massive industrial farming models into our oceans and further exacerbate the havoc wreaked by the soy industry on land—including massive amounts of dangerous herbicide use and massive deforestation,” stated Hauter.

Once grown, the soy feed continues its adverse effects. Not being the natural food for fish, the farmed fish excrete more waste, which pollutes the open waters. In addition, some of these soy-fed fish will escape and breed with wild fish, affecting natural populations. Excess feed will escape as well, causing unknown damage to wild populations.

Despite these risks, soy has been touted as a more ecologically-sound alternative to feed in aquaculture, notably by the American Soy Association.

According to the report, “the rising use of soy in fish farming industries will mean that notorious agribusinesses like Monsanto, which has sponsored feed trials with genetically modified soy and salmon, and Cargill, which has an aquaculture feed division, will play a hand in seafood production.” The report notes that half of the seafood consumed globally is through aquaculture, creating a potential gold mine in profits for these companies.

Read original post: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/02-2

American Gas Firm Launching $250 Million NAFTA Challenge to Quebec Fracking Ban

November 19, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbonsfracking, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Globe and Mail on US energy firm Lone Pine Resources’ forthcoming NAFTA challenge regarding lost economic opportunities resulting from Quebec’s ban on natural gas hydraulic fracturing. (Nov. 15, 2012)

A U.S.-incorporated energy firm, Lone Pine Resources Inc., is taking on Quebec’s stand against fracking, saying it violates the North American free-trade agreement and demanding more than $250-million in compensation.

Lone Pine Resources Inc., headquartered in Calgary but incorporated in Delaware, disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week that on Nov. 8, it filed a notice of intent to sue the Canadian government under NAFTA’s controversial Chapter 11.

Those provisions of the trade treaty allow U.S. and Mexican companies to sue Ottawa if they feel they have been wronged by a government policy or action.

Lone Pine is just one of many major natural gas companies affected by Quebec’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting liquids deep into the ground. Fracking has been controversial over fears for its effects on the environment and drinking water, and has been banned in several European countries. The industry says that done properly, it is safe.

According to Lone Pine, Quebec passed legislation last June that, in addition to the moratorium, also completely cancelled permits for oil and gas activity in areas directly below the waters of the St. Lawrence River – including the revoking of a permit held by Lone Pine covering 33,460 acres.”

Company spokesman Shane Abel said in an interview that Quebec’s legislation denies the company any compensation for the loss of its permit.

“We think that the expropriation is arbitrary and without merit,” he said. “… We think that’s a clear violation of the NAFTA agreement.”

The NAFTA challenge, levelled at a major environmental policy, is fuel for critics of trade deals who are now attacking Canada’s proposed investor-protection agreement with China, which would extend similar rights to Chinese investors in Canada.

“It contradicts everything the government has said about the China investment treaty, about it having no impact on the environment and there being no threats to non-discriminatory environmental measures,” said Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

BP Settles for $4.5 Billion in Damages, Plus Criminal Charges Over 2010 Gulf Spill

November 19, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&GasBP Disaster, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Associated Press on BP’s recent settlement for damages relating to its 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and related criminal charges. (Nov. 15, 2012)

NEW ORLEANS — A day of reckoning arrived for BP on Thursday as the oil giant agreed to plead guilty to a raft of criminal charges and pay a record $4.5 billion in a settlement with the government over the deadly 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Three BP employees were also charged, two of them with manslaughter.

The settlement and the indictments came 2½ years after the drilling-rig explosion that killed 11 workers and set off the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The settlement includes nearly $1.3 billion in fines — the biggest criminal penalty in U.S. history — along with payments to entities inside and outside government. As part of the deal, the BP will plead guilty to charges related to the deaths of the 11 workers and to lying to Congress.

“We believe this resolution is in the best interest of BP and its shareholders,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP chairman. “It removes two significant legal risks and allows us to vigorously defend the company against the remaining civil claims.”

Also, BP rig workers Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine were indicted on federal charges of manslaughter and involuntary manslaughters, accused of repeatedly disregarding abnormal high-pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout.

In addition, David Rainey, BP’s vice president of exploration for the Gulf of Mexico at the time, was indicted on charges of obstruction of Congress and making false statements. Prosecutors said he withheld information from Congress that indicated the amount of oil spewing from the blown-out well was greater than he let on.

Rainey’s lawyers said the former executive did “absolutely nothing wrong.” And attorneys for the two rig workers accused the Justice Department of making scapegoats out of them.

“Bob was not an executive or high-level BP official. He was a dedicated rig worker who mourns his fallen co-workers every day,” Kaluza attorneys Shaun Clarke and David Gerger said in a statement. “No one should take any satisfaction in this indictment of an innocent man. This is not justice.”

The settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, includes payments of nearly $2.4 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences and about $500 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC accused BP of misleading investors by lowballing the amount of crude spewing from the well.

“This marks the largest single criminal fine and the largest total criminal resolution in the history of the United States,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference in New Orleans. He said much of the money will be used to restore the Gulf.

Fort Nelson First Nation Pushes for Shale Gas Water Licence Reform

November 19, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Politics, WATER, Water and Hydrocarbons, Western Canadafracking, Oil and gas, Politics, Water and EnergyCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story by Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail on Fort Nelson First Nation’s concerns about long-term water withdrawal licence applications for shale gas development in their territory in northeast BC. (Nov. 13, 2012)

Kanute Loe, an elder with a small native band in northeast British Columbia, measures the impact of the gas industry on the environment by looking at the water levels dropping in the streams and rivers he fishes.

“I spend a lot of my time in the bush. I travel the rivers … there’s creeks that there’s no water coming out of,” he said Tuesday.

“All of a sudden we’re having trouble catching fish … Our rivers are getting harder to navigate … it’s almost like somebody drilled a hole in the bottom of the bathtub,” Mr. Loe said in Vancouver at a news conference to express aboriginal concerns about increasing water extraction by industry.

Sharleen Wildeman, chief of the Fort Nelson First Nation, said her band has grown alarmed at the growing needs of the gas industry, which draws water from streams, lakes and rivers. The water is mixed with sand and chemicals in a slurry that is injected deep under ground. The process, known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking, breaks up shale structures and releases gas deposits.

Ms. Wildeman, whose 800-member band is located near the booming Horn River gas fields, said industry in that area has 20 long-term water licence applications before the B.C. government. If those licences are approved, she said, it would authorize industry to withdraw “tens of billions of litres of water annually” for up to 40 years, for use in fracking operations.

“We are extremely concerned about a massive giveaway of water from our rivers and lakes, without any credible process identifying what the long-term impacts will be,” she said.

Ms. Wildeman is upset with a government consultation process “that has stalled,” and she said the band is demanding five conditions be met before any new water licences are approved.

She said the band wants baseline environmental studies done before licences are issued; multi-year development plans filed in advance to identify proposed water sources, gas-well sites, roads and camps; environmental plans that cap water withdrawals at ecologically acceptable levels; protection of culturally significant land and water resources, and an agreement that environmental impact monitoring and enforcement will be done by an independent body.

“Failure to embrace these fundamental reforms will lead to increasing yet avoidable conflict,” Ms. Wildeman said.

Trees Slashed and Burned for Northwest Transmission Line

November 19, 2012Energy and Resources, Logging and Forests, Mining, WATERCommon Sense Canadian

Trees slashed and burned for Northwest Transmission Line — 70-foot tall log teepees like this one are being burned all along the NWTL route (photo: Damien Gillis)

Read this story from CBC on the slashing and burning of thousands of trees by BC Hydro for the construction of its Northwest Transmission Line north of Terrace. (Nov. 7, 2012)

BC Hydro is warning people living northwestern B.C. of smoke haze in that area as they cut down and burn hundreds of kilometres of timber to make way for the Northwest Transmission Line.

The utility’s transmission line project connects an existing substation near Terrace, B.C. and a new substation to be built further north, near Bob Quinn Lake, in 2014.

“In clearing the right of way there’s a lot of woody debris that has to be disposed of. And we do have approval… to dispose of that by burning,” said BC Hydro spokesperson Lesley Wood.

Wood said she didn’t know the total volume of the wood being burned, only that it is considerable.

“When you considering that you’re clearing a right of way up to 80 meters worth of clearing for 340 kilometers — it’s a lot,” she said.

Wood says it isn’t economically viable to use the trees for biofuel or firewood, but says the Nisga’a nation, one of the groups contracted to do the cut and burn, may try to sell some of the timber.

Cariboo North MLA Bob Simpson says the clearing is likely one of the biggest timber cuts in B.C. in 2012.

“This order of magnitude of slash and burn is certainly going to increase B.C.’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. When is this province going to get involved in bioenergy, biodigesting in a bigger way so we never have these circumstances?” said Simpson.

“It’s a misuse of a public resource.”

Sharon Glover, the CEO of B.C. Professional Foresters, said there’s no need to be burning the timber — that some of it is bound to be salvageable.

“To say that the forest , ‘We’ll just burn it because it’s not our problem, it’s in our way,’ we need to think differently. If you just burn it you’re saying that timber has no use to anyone. And we just don’t buy it.

“We suspect in the mix of that timber that some of it is going to be merchantable, usable as saw logs, and other timber might be used for bioenergy, shipped to pellet plants or shipped to biomass projects.”

Unprecedented Internal Access to DFO for Enbridge

November 19, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on Enbridge’s unprecedented access to the Departmen tof Fisheries and Oceans, including their own dedicated internal staff dedicated to the company’s project. (Nov. 10, 2012)

Enbridge Inc.’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project is getting special attention from the federal Fisheries department, according to an internal email obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

In what critics call an unprecedented step, the department has listed a “Northern Gateway Liaison” at a top level of its organizational chart, under a reorganization prompted by the 2012 budget’s sweeping Fisheries Act amendments.

The position will report directly to the executive director of the National Ecosystems Management Branch at the department’s headquarters.

“This suggests an unprecedented level of access and engagement for a specific project,” said Green party leader Elizabeth May, who in the 1980s was a senior adviser to a federal environment minister.

“This is the reality of a government that has told the bureaucracy, ‘be prepared to make sure this project goes through.’ ” B.C. NDP MP Fin Donnelly, his party’s deputy fisheries critic, said he’s never heard of a company getting such special treatment.

“This clearly exposes the Harper Conservative oil pipeline agenda. They are putting the oil industry ahead of fishing, tourism and all other industries.”