Category Archives: Pipelines and Supertankers

Oil Pipeline, Tanker Spills not a ‘Risk’ but a Certainty

March 27, 2013Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATER, Water and HydrocarbonsRafe Mair

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. It looks like the gods are doing just that with the Premier and her government.

What I’ve seen the past several weeks forces me to ask, Madame Premier: Is that thing on your shoulders just for photo-ops?

For starters. Is the Kitsilano Search and Rescue Centre really a bargaining chip with the federal government over the Enbridge pipeline proposal? Do you really believe that David Black’s proposed refinery is going to make things better? That 3 pipelines carrying bitumen are safer than two?

I’ve got to say it, Premier: you don’t know a damned thing about pipelines and tankers.

Do you not understand that the rupture of a pipeline or “accident” with a tanker is mathematically inevitable? That we’re not talking risks but certainties? Your friends in the business community like to call these things “risks” in order to convince people that they’re not likely to happen. Think on this, Premier – if an accident is not going to happen, why make multimillion dollar facilities to clean them up?

The theorem is not that something can be an “acceptable risk” but that an “ongoing risk” is a certainty waiting to happen. You simply must understand this, Premier, or you are selling out the Province. As they say, shit happens.

You would have laughed, as we all would have on March 21, 2006, to think that a BC Ferry would sink, yet the following day that is just what happened.

Prior to June, 2012, we would all have scoffed at the thought that a luxury liner, on a fine day, would sink, causing several deaths and injuries.

Having agreed on that, we must assess what the damage will be. With an airplane we know that. When we get on a plane we’re betting on the odds being in our favour, but the fact that there will be crashes is a certainty. We are also prepared to concede that if our jet crashes, we’ll be dead.

If we’re to be honest, Premier, what we’re asking is not what are the odds of this happening, since we know that it will. As long as human beings are involved, there will be human error. It’s not a matter if airplanes will crash but what are the odds on it happening, say, in a month.

It is the same with pipelines and tankers – we know that these calamities are certainties but today nothing will likely happen. Even if we disagree on the odds, that doesn’t alter the fact that it will happen. We are only really calculating when or how often – the same thing an insurance company does, or we do when we bet on the odds at the race track.

Knowing the inevitable, we must now consider the consequences. It’s rather like calculating how long you can put to your head a revolver with 100 chambers and one bullet and keep pulling the chamber. You know you’ll kill yourself – the only mystery being when. If, however, you don’t put a bullet in the chamber, but marshmallow instead, you don’t care, for you won’t be hurt.

We’re not talking marshmallow here.

With oil spills and tankers, we know that the result, whenever it happens, will be hideous, catastrophic. With diluted bitumen (dilbit), there is no such thing as a small accident and you and your government must begin to understand that.

Now, to cleanup. The fact is that there is little that can be done except to the stuff you can see and access and even then very little.

I hope you know about the Enbridge “accident” in Michigan at the Kalamazoo River in July 2010. This spill was described as “not serious” by the government but it hasn’t been cleaned up yet!

Where our pipelines spill, it will not be easy to access for men and machines. Look at the proposed routes. When a spill occurs in the Rockies, the Rocky Mountain Trench, the Coast Range or the Great Bear Rainforest, how the hell are you going to get there? So you are faced with the facts that spills of dilbit are catastrophic and with our proposed pipelines you can’t get to them.

Just what makes you think that David Black’s proposed refinery will make things better?

It will be bringing bitumen from the same tar sands over the same terrain as the proposed Enbridge pipeline. The only possible plus is that instead of dumping dilbit into the ocean it will be refined oil, just like the Exxon Valdez did.

It’s been said that the Kinder Morgan line has been safe. I put this to Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace and an authority on these matters and here’s what he says:

• There have been a number of incidents related to the Trans Mountain pipeline – including the spill in Burnaby in 2007. Trans Mountain Pipeline (Kinder Morgan) pleaded guilty pleas to a 21-count indictment in B.C. Provincial Court.

• In 2009, oil spilled from Kinder Morgan’s oil Westridge terminal in Burnaby.

• There was another spill in January, 2012, near Abbotsford at Kinder Morgan’s tank farm. In that case, the National Energy Board charged that Trans Mountain Pipeline operators ignored warning alarms, spilling 90,000 litres of bitumen crude oil.

• Just a few months later, the same Abbotsford facility was home to yet another spill.

That’s 5 spills in this region in the last 6 years. There have been more – over 70 spills along the whole Trans Mountain Pipeline route since it began operation in the 1950s.

Below is an interesting video that discusses the 2007 spill, and the extreme problems with Bitumen.

Premier Clark, you owe it to your province to deal with the issues raised – not with industry slogans and bullshit, but with logic and facts. It’s getting late.

BC’s Fossil Fuel Folly

March 23, 2013Energy and Resources, Fracking, LNG, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersRay Grigg

Perhaps the big white banner with black letters at the recent American protest of the Keystone XL pipeline summarizes BC’s fossil fuel folly. “Fossil Fuels? Fossil Fools,” it declares. The “o”s are painted a hazardous yellow, and within each is an unequivocal “x”. The protest’s specific target is the pipeline intended to carry carbon-intensive crude from Alberta’s tar-sands to refineries in the US southern Gulf Coast; the protest’s broader target is the industrial development that is adding carbon dioxide to an already stressed biosphere.

People who are concerned about global climate change are watching the steep rise of global carbon dioxide emissions. While a few nations have been heroic in their efforts to cut these emissions, international efforts have been eminently unsuccessful. So BC’s strategy to export energy — massive amounts of LNG, increasing quantities of coal, and perhaps a tide-water port for Alberta’s bitumen — is generating justifiable scrutiny, criticism and concern. People are counting carbon, dreading the consequences and registering their objections.

Not surprisingly, numerous rallies are being held opposing the Keystone XL pipeline. Natural gas is also the subject of worry. Although it’s an energy that produces only half the carbon dioxide of coal when burned, some experts think that the massive drilling required, combined with the escaped methane from fracking, may make natural gas as carbon intensive as coal. Coal, too, is a target of protest. It causes ecological damage when mined, produces numerous toxic pollutants when burned, and its industrial use generates the world’s largest single source of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Since we all live on a planet with one shared atmosphere, BC cannot embark on a strategy of exporting fossil fuel energy without calculating the global consequences. So it must expect both criticism and resistance from those who are counting carbon. Indeed, BC cannot even claim the virtue that its forests are sequestering carbon because new evidence suggests that the mountain pine beetle infestation is so massive that the province’s forests are now carbon negative — they are producing more carbon dioxide than they are presently storing. Even BC’s claim that natural gas is a carbon bargain is suspect because any gains in reducing CO2 emissions will likely be lost by the energy-intensive process of compressing huge quantities of it for export as liquid natural gas (LNG). Then more greenhouse gases are emitted when transporting the LNG by ship to distant destinations.

If BC were truly interested in its carbon virtue, it might note a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Jane Petch, Island Tides, Feb. 28/13) which found that all BC’s energy needs could probably be met by hydro electricity. Electrical consumption in the province is flat and any increase in demand can likely be met by efficiency improvements. This ethical option is undermined by the expanding industrial demands of mining, gas production and LNG projects.

BC is attempting to justify its strategy of exporting LNG by arguing that this relatively clean fuel — a debatable claim — will displace the use of coal elsewhere, thereby reducing net global carbon dioxide emissions. But a global review of coal use suggests otherwise. And BC’s argument is further compromised by its record coal exports. A province more idealistic and less opportunistic could at least stabilize its share of global carbon dioxide emissions by cutting its coal exports to compensate for its LNG exports — something it is not considering.

Between 2001 and 2010 the US was able to reduce its coal use by 5 percent, helping it cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 1.7 percent (NewScientist, Nov. 17/12). But during that same period, global coal consumption increased by 47 percent, simply because other countries are dramatically increasing their consumption. As a fuel, coal is cheap, readily available, and its carbon dioxide output is wholly unregulated, unsanctioned and free. It now produces 40 percent of the world’s electricity. And global consumption is at record levels. China, which uses three times the US consumption of coal, is showing no signs of reducing its use. In fact, China has new coal-fired electrical plants in construction that will exceed the entire coal-fired production of electricity in the US.

According to statistics in NewScientist, the amount of coal used on the planet is staggering. “Global consumption is about 71 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, which is equal to the daily oil output of more than eight Saudi Arabias” (Ibid.). This means that any coal exported from BC will simply go to feed the voracious global hunger for energy. And any LNG exported will not displace coal; it will simply be added to the climate crisis already unfolding. And any export of LNG will will eventually compromise BC’s own energy needs.

If BC is going to export massive quantities of its natural gas, how is it to meet its own long-term energy needs? What are the environmental consequences of producing the extra energy required to power the drilling, compressing and mining of resources for export? What are the monetary and social costs of such a strategy? What are the economic traps in such infrastructure investment, considering that countries such as Australia already have 17 LNG plants in development? And what are the ethical implications of exporting fossil fuel energy to a world that is already wounding itself with excessive carbon dioxide emissions? Are these not valid questions that must be considered in BC’s energy strategy? From a considered perspective, BC is joining the march down the path of fossil fuel folly.

Big-picture Thinking Needed to Protect Nature

March 20, 2013Energy and Resources, Fracking, Mining, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Species At RiskDr. David Suzuki

Few places on Earth have been untouched by humans, according to a study in the journal Science. Satellite images taken from hundreds of kilometres above the planet reveal a world that we have irrevocably changed within a remarkably short time.

Although industrial projects like the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline or the recently defeated mega-quarry in Ontario typically grab the headlines and bring out public opposition, it’s often the combined impacts of a range of human activities on the same land base that threaten to drive nature beyond critical tipping points. Once those are passed, rapid ecological changes such as species extinction can occur.

For example, in British Columbia’s booming Peace Region, forestry, energy and mineral leases and licences are widespread and often multilayered in the same area. As various industries have exploited these “tenures”, a sprawling patchwork of large clearcuts, oil wells, dams and reservoirs, fracking operations and thousands of kilometres of seismic lines, roads and pipelines have come to dominate the landscape.

Today, more than 65 per cent of the region has felt the impact of industrial development, leaving little intact habitat for sensitive, endangered species such as caribou to feed, breed or roam. Degradation or destruction of habitat has convinced scientists that remaining herds in the region are no longer self-sustaining and are spiralling toward local extinction. First Nations, who have relied upon caribou as their primary source of food for thousands of years, can no longer hunt them. This is a clear violation of treaty rights.

This dire situation didn’t happen by accident or because of a laissez-faire approach to resource and land management. Numerous industries in the area have been operating legally and according to rules and regulations set by government.

But legal experts, such as those at the nongovernmental organization West Coast Environmental Law, believe a root cause of the problem lies in laws about land, resource and water management that are “hardwired” to fail communities and the environment. The narrow focus of those laws enables industries to operate in isolation from one another.

B.C., for example, has developed numerous individual laws, like the Forest and Range Practices Act, Oil and Gas Activities Act and Mines Act, alongside the regulated industries they enable. But the province lacks a legal framework to proactively and comprehensively manage the cumulative impacts of multiple resource industries operating within the same area.

Because of this, WCEL and its First Nations partners are engaged in a multi-year law reform project that aims to overhaul the way we currently oversee and regulate cumulative impacts, ranging from declining water quality that may arise as a result of multiple industries using a common resource, to emerging threats such as climate change.

A cumulative-impacts approach to governing resource development would upend the current management paradigm. It would focus on the management needs of the land, water, air, wildlife and indigenous communities that depend on them first, rather than the resources to be extracted. In practical terms, this would mean that, rather than focusing on what we should take from nature to create wealth and employment, we should first consider what must be retained in nature to sustain both wildlife and the well-being of local communities – such as clean air, safe drinking water and healthy local food.

At a recent symposium on managing the cumulative impacts of resource development in B.C., numerous speakers – from First Nations to academics to business leaders – stressed that effectively managing cumulative impacts will require new institutions and governance mechanisms, even new legal tools. More importantly, it will require our leaders to adopt a more proactive and holistic way of thinking about the world – one that recognizes that far from just being a place to extract resources like fossil fuels, timber and minerals, nature is our home. Nature provides our most fundamental needs and dictates limits to growth and so its protection should be our highest priority.

Managing our massive, growing human footprint on this planet more sustainably will require leadership, much of which is emerging from First Nations peoples who are on the frontlines of the day-to-day realities of cumulative environmental change. We need to look at the big picture rather than individual elements in isolation.

Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Ontario and Northern Canada Director-General Faisal Moola.

Premier’s calculations for pipelines, fish farms, Site C Dam don’t add up

March 13, 2013Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, PoliticsRafe Mair

Gary Mason’s column in the March 12 edition of The Globe and Mail, on Christy Clark, is very interesting. The premier is complaining about the lack of precision in the NDP’s plans and calls upon Adrian Dix to spell it all out.

What is most interesting is Ms. Clark’s position on issues and what she deems those issues to be. (Remember that the Liberals have raised the provincial debt and other taxpayer obligations by some five fold, which should limit the generosity of both leaders).

“So not only are the people going to compare me with Adrian Dix,” said Clark, “they will be comparing leadership with an absence of courage to tell people where his party where his party stands on things. If we get into a competition of ideas in this campaign, I believe we can win that battle because I believe the things I stand for are what British Columbians want: a strong economy, smaller government, jobs for our kids, a prosperity fund, lower taxes.”

Leaving aside the prosperity fund nonsense for a moment, these words could have been attributed to all premiers I have listened to going back to my own days in the Legislature. Mindless crap, motherhood and apple pie – but predictable.

Clearly, there are a number of things Ms. Clark does not wish to debate, especially the deplorable fiscal situation and scandals galore, with two fresh ones ongoing right now.

Let’s have a look at the promise involving the chimera she calls a “prosperity fund”.

This is simple barnyard droppings wrapped in a pretty package. You will remember that in the Throne Speech this “fund” would come to pass in two years. In an interview with Justine Hunter she admitted that might be up to five years – how long will it be Ms. Clark?

How about “never”.

The plain truth is that it will never happen. Even if LNG plants (the proposed sources of funds) sprang up all over the province, which they won’t, any revenue would be required for general taxation for a province Ms. Clark’s government, and the Campbell one before it, has left broke.

It would be just as accurate for Premier Clark to promise that our economy under a Liberal government – our “prosperity” – depends upon the Easter Bunny.

Let’s turn now to what the premier is not talking about – the environment.

Readers will recall that the environment has never been a major issue in elections. The media types who conduct and participate in the traditional debate never raise this as an issue because their bosses won’t tolerate anything that smacks of being anti-Liberal.

We have had a recent environmental question arise over a refinery to be built in Kitimat by David Black. Now this is the issue in a nutshell: Premier Clark, who has raised red flags regarding the proposed Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat, has hinted at her support for Black’s alternative venture, which would see diluted Alberta bitumen refined in Kitimat before being loaded onto tankers destined for other markets.

The premier says she opposes Enbridge because it doesn’t give BC sufficient revenue to compensate for the environmental ‘risk’. Black’s alternative involves a pipeline carrying the same product from the same place, along the same route, to the same destination, where it would then be refined before being loaded onto tankers. And yet, Clark somehow seems amenable to the newer proposal.

The only apparent difference is the greater share of provincial revenue and local jobs which Black’s proposal offers and the perceived lower risk of shipping refined products vs. diluted bitumen (only for the tankers – the pipeline would be moving the same Tar Sands product).

In essence the Liberal position is we will not approve these pipelines and tanker traffic unless the bribe is sufficient to permit us to overlook the risks.

Here is the crux of the matter. Surely all would agree that in order to meet the money versus pipelines and tankers issue we must assess what that risk is. That’s only common sense.

What, then, Premier Clark, do you assess these risks to be?

Surely there must be a formula. Tell us that it isn’t just flying by the seat of our pants, or pantsuits!

What studies has your government done to assess these risks? Have you looked at the history of pipelines the world over? Have you, more to the point, assessed the risks associated with Enbridge, whose record is appalling? Black, for his part, has zero experience moving oil products – hardly any more reassuring.

But it’s more than that, for you surely agree that before making this “risk for dough” assessment you must not only deal with the possibilities of a spill but what damages would flow.

What about, say, a spill in the Rockies, or in the Coast Range, or in the Rocky Mountain Trench or in the Great Bear Rain Forest? Or by tanker. In the case of pipelines, how in hell is a company going to get men and heavy machinery to the site?

I’m sure you’ve seen by now that you must not only assess the risk of harm in various sensitive areas, be they in a fjord, Vancouver Harbour, and in all sensitive areas, which, Premier, means everywhere in the province, but what the cost will be.

Are you familiar, Ms. Premier, with the Enbridge spill in the Kalamazoo River in July 2010? There, the spill was easily accessed yet 2½ years later it has still not been cleaned up.

I shouldn’t have to ask if you know the difference between dilbit (diluted bitumen) and refined oil.

But do you? Do you know what the consequences of dilbit accidents are?

Let’s call these spills/accidents for what they really are.

They are not risks but catastrophes waiting to happen. It’s not “if”, Premier Clark, but “when”.

What you are saying to the people of BC is that you are prepared to take a certain sum of money for inevitable “accidents”, wherever they happen and whatever damage they do.

At least be honest on this score so that the voting public has a clear understanding that for money you will abandon our heritage.

There are two other issues that I will go into in depth with as the days pass.

Your government is continuing to grant fish farm licenses in spite of Commissioner Bruce Cohen’s report. Indeed, your government is the landlord for all BC’s fish farms (signing off on the tenures they require to site and operate their farms), yet you have done no policing and the only fines ever imposed came from an NDP administration and the Campbell government gave them their fines back.

The only way these farms can make a profit is by sending their sewage (fish excrement, unconsumed food, anti-lice compounds, unconsumed medicines, drugs and colourants) into the oceans as raw sewage.

Quite apart from the appalling impact these hideous farms have had on wild salmon runs, the above should have you forcing these farms on land, as a recent federal government report recommended.

Will you do this – and if not, why not?

The weasel words, “run of river” projects, have decimated our rivers and, as with fish farms, no inspection of them takes place even though there have been 1000s of broken rules. BC Hydro, the jewel of our crown would be bankrupt if it were in the private sector because of the sweetheart deals your government has forced them to pay to private companies.

This is just one of the scandalous policies that have beset your government. What are you going to do about this issue?

Finally, Premier, why Site C Dam?

Is this really a process to provide energy to gas prospectors who can use that energy to “frack” for natural gas to make energy? And to power the liquefaction of natural gas (LNG), for which, in all likelihood, there will be no customers?

(By the way, Ms. Clark, have you even the faintest idea what the fracking process is all about, and the undetermined environmental impacts?)

Yes, Mr. Dix must come clean with his program and I intend to ask him questions like these. But you are the premier. You must deal with these issues and do so in specific terms, not barfed up stale marshmallows.

I assure you that you will hear about these issues again, for many British Columbians, including me, believe our environment and the fauna and flora it creates and protects is worth more than simply a token amount that they consider, and write off, as a cost of doing business no matter how much that may be.

Rafe’s Welcome Letter to New Sun & Province Publisher

February 2, 2013Hydropower, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, Western CanadaRafe Mair

In the Postmedia press this past week we learned that Gordon Fisher has become publisher of The Vancouver Sun and The Province. Here is my welcome.

Dear Mr. Fisher,

My congratulations on your new posting. These two papers need all the help they can get.

I’m an octogenarian now – I love that word because it’s more descriptive than “senior citizen” and because no one I knew in my 40s would have bet a plug nickel I’d ever get this far.

As a lifetime British Columbian I go back a long way. As a youngster I was a Tillicum mostly because The Province gave you a neat faked silver totem pole as a badge. The magic words were “Klahowya , Tillicum”, which my cousin said came from Indians saying to Hudson’s Bay employees, “Clerk how you?”

I doubt that but have never heard of a better answer

I didn’t join The Sun’s Uncle Ben club because my Dad hated The Sun – in those days there was real rivalry!

I remember some of the great writers of that day – Eric Nichol, Jack Scott, Harold Weir (a rabid royalist) and I even read Sir Michael Bruce, whose taffy-nosed columns used to get under everyone’s skin.

I would like to talk about more modern times.

Back in the 70s I ran for the BC Legislature and as I awaited the election I couldn’t wait to read Marjorie Nichols in The Sunas night after night she kicked the crap out of the NDP government, especially Dave Barrett.

When I was elected it seemed as if Marjorie had had a brain transplant as now she was hammering the hell out of the Socreds and Bill Bennett!

I asked myself how Marjorie had changed so dramatically until the light went on – it wasn’t Marjorie who had changed, it was the government!

As the days passed I noticed that Jack Webster, Pat Burns, Jack Wasserman, Denny Boyd, Garry Bannerman, Ed Murphy, Jim Hume, Barbara McClintock – indeed the entire political press were “unfairly” beating up on us.

After I left the government I realized that they were “holding our feet to the fire” and it made for a better, more responsive government. It was that obligation I adopted when in 1981 I went into radio.

In the nineties you will remember the NDP under Mike Harcourt took over for the next decade.

The print media, especially Mike Smyth of The Province and Vaughn Palmer of the Sun were merciless in their pursuit of at least a close proximity to the truth. There were two areas that stick in my mind – the fast ferries issue and Glen Clark’s dealing with a man trying to get a gambling licence, who did some work on the premier’s house.

These two and Les Leyne and Jim Hume, both of the Times-Colonist, were relentless in their pursuit of the facts and highly critical of the premier and other members of the government.

In 2001 it all changed as the Liberals under Gordon Campbell took power. The media suddenly started to avoid issues or give them a once-and-for-all treatment.

Let me be specific.

For the first time in my life, the environment has become an issue, perhaps the #1 in the province. In no special order, here are the main issues: loss of agricultural land due to the Gateway Project, fish farms, private river power, pipelines and tankers, and most recently “fracking”.

Mr. Fisher, I ask you to look at your columnists and determine for yourself whether any of these questions have been canvassed – not well canvassed but canvassed at all.

Let’s start with fish farms. These have not been covered at all in spite of the terrible consequences of them including ruination of wild salmon! I invite you to find a critical word – indeed any word at all – in Smyth or Palmer’s columns in the last 12 years. You will note that your former editor of the Sun editorial pages, a “fellow” of the Fraser Institute, freely gave op-ed opportunities to the fish farmers’ lobby, yet you’ll search in vain to see anything from, say, Alexandra Morton.

The so-called “run of river” policy has desecrated 75 rivers and proposes to do the same to hundreds more. These projects build a dam (they prefer to call them “weirs” but they are dams) which kill migrating salmon and resident trout and, in effect, permanently decimate the ecosystems that depend upon the river. You see, Mr. Fisher, these plants not only impact the fish directly but the entire ecology as they require roads and clear-cutting for transmission lines.

Let’s leave aside the environment and look at the economics.

BC Hydro is compelled by the provincial government to sign agreements with Independent Power Producers (IPPS) on a “take or pay” basis meaning that when IPPs are going all out during run-offs, BC Hydro, which has full reservoirs, must buy this power even though they don’t need it, at double to ten times the export price and many times more expensive than it can generate it themselves. BC Hydro owes IPPs for future power over $50 Billion!

This all means, of course, that Hydro can no longer pay a dividend to the government of the customary hundreds of millions of dollars and is, in fact, bankrupt by private, corporate standards.

I invite you to look at your columnists’ work over the past 5 years and try to find a discouraging word about private power. There have been the occasional, very occasional, news story but your political columnists are and have been silent.

Let me pause and tell you that after I had raised hell on this subject, Province editor Wayne Moriarty phoned me and whined, “Rafe, do you think I tell my columnists what they must not write about?” to which I replied ,“You don’t have to, Wayne, you don’t have to.”

Let’s move on to the pipelines issue, especially the Enbridge proposal and the proposed new Kinder Morgan line. At the same time, let’s glance at the tanker traffic these two pipelines will need.

These are both huge issues. The issue isn’t the risk of spills, Mr. Fisher, but the certainty of them. Even the Federal Environment Ministry (scarcely known to be tree-huggers) says that these spills are inevitable.

But, you may well ask, surely these spills can be cleaned up?

First let’s deal with the proposed Enbridge line, which is more than 1,000 Kilometers long and passes through the Rockies, the Rocky Mountain Trench, through the Coast Range then through The Great Bear Rainforest. When a spill occurs, how the devil will Enbridge get men and machines in to the spill area?

Mr. Fisher, it’s even worse. It doesn’t matter.

Enbridge had a huge spill into the Kalamazoo River in July 2010 and it hasn’t been cleaned up yet and never will be. Access to the spill site posed no difficulties but cleanup certainly did.

The cargo is what they call dilbit or diluted bitumen, product of the Tar Sands, which in itself is the world’s largest polluter. With ordinary bulk oil one can get to a lot of it by “rafting” which, as you would imagine, is surrounding it, localizing it then scooping it up.

Unfortunately, within a very short time after a dilbit spill, the bitumen separates from the diluent and sinks like a stone. Not only will Enbridge be unable to get to the spill, even if it could they would be helpless to do anything of consequence.

The problem scarcely ends there. The tanker traffic poses huge problems.

Again, Mr. Fisher, it’s not a matter of “if” but “when”. The consequences of a spill are too awful to even contemplate. Whether down Douglas Channel from Kitimat or through Vancouver Harbour from Burnaby the consequences of a spill will be horrendous.

Yes, with double hulling there will be fewer accidents, the operative word being fewer. As we know from the BC Ferry Queen of the North calamity, where there is a possibility of human error, tragedies will happen.

I’m sorry to have been so long-winded, Mr. Fisher, but my point is that Postmedia’s coverage of the matters mentioned has been pathetic and journalistic critique, let alone criticism, has been nonexistent.

I ask you, are you content to let this continue?

Yours very truly,
Rafe Mair

Environment still an afterthought to BC media in election run-up

January 21, 2013Energy and Resources, Fracking, LNG, Media, Oceans, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Salmon Farming and AquacultureRafe Mair

Mike Smyth gave us a full page story of his interview with Adrian Dix in the Sunday Province without a word on the environment!

What’s with these guys at Postmedia? Are the thousands upon thousands of hits that organizations like the Wilderness Committee, and yes, the Common Sense Canadian, garner meaningless? Can it be that a handful of NDP supporters visit our websites 1000’s of times a day?

For reasons that escape me, Dix is getting a free ride in the capitalist press.

At least Fazil Mihlar, when he was editor of the Sun’s editorial pages up until recently, kept the faith with the far right, as this Fellow of the Fraser Institute flooded the op-ed pages with articles by anyone who’d kiss the ass of the fish farmers, coal miners, pipeline companies, the tanker people and so on. And we’ve long given up on star Suncolumnist Vaughn Palmer’s ability to ask a tough question of anyone or say something that even barely qualifies as controversial – but Mike was beginning to draw some blood in both major political camps.

There is, evidently, a strong aversion in the mainstream media to talk about the environment and I can only guess why. Was the Kalamazoo spill by Enbridge too complicated to deal with? And the 800+ other spills by this wretched despoiler of the outdoors?

Is the question of the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline too difficult to analyze, the issues being the same as the proposed Enbridge line?

Are we having trouble dealing with dilbit, the chemical-laced bitumen that it is proposed to be piped through our mountains and valleys into tankers to ply the waters of the Great Bear Rainforest? Is it too time consuming to let readers know of the disastrous difference between bitumen spills and the stuff with which the Exxon Valdez polluted our waters and killed our fish and birds?

What about LNG? (Liquified Natural Gas) Is it beyond the abilities of the Sun and the Province to deal with the environmental issues surrounding fracking, which, by drilling first vertically, then horizontally, pumps out gas from between layers of shale? Where do the enormous volumes of water required for this process come from? After it’s laced with poisonous chemicals and the result pumped underground to crack open the shale, where does it go? Into the water table? Are there potential consequences of stability to the earth’s crust – such as this recentreport from the BC Oil and Gas Commission suggests?

What about fish farms? The Province and Sun have avoided this issue like the plague, with the notable exception of Mihlar, who seems to have given a free pass to the fish farms when they wanted the op-ed page.

What of the desecration of farmland, especially in the Delta area?

Adrian Dix has taken stands on these issues – sort of. He’s against Enbridge but silent on Kinder Morgan. If Kinder Morgan proceeds there will be unbelievable risks from tankers in Vancouver Harbour right out until the open ocean is reached.

The NDP have approved of LNG plants for the northern coast. Does this mean that they are unconcerned about the threat pipelines pose to the fauna and flora they pass through? Does this mean they have satisfied themselves that fracking poses no environmental concerns?

And with the same concerns applying to Kinder Morgan as with Enbridge, how can Mr. Dix condemn the latter while being undecided about the former?

Mr. Dix seems to be concerned about fish farms, but what would he do about them?

And what about the private power catastrophe which has ruined or will soon ruin some 75 rivers while bankrupting BC Hydro? Mr. Dix seems to be against them but what would he do about them? Hydro is presently on the hook for $50 BILLION dollars from these thieves in three piece suits.

Meanwhile, another multi-billion-dollar Hydro boondoggle and environmental calamity awaits us with the proposed Site C Dam – which wouldflood over 12,000 acres of farmland and wilderness to provide subsidized electricity to new mines and gas operations. The NDP has been on the fence at best with this massive project.

Mr. Dix seems to believe that a clean fight is on its way. Is this because he doesn’t want the Liberals to deal with the little matter of outright forgery he committed to save Glen Clark’s scalp in the Pilarinos scandal?

Politics is a blood sport in BC and will be in spite of the hypocrisy of Mr Dix.

The Common Sense Canadian, being devoted to environmental issues. will likely support the NDP in the May election but this doesn’t mean we support handling Mr. Dix or anyone else with kid gloves.

All we really ask is for an informed public, something apparently anathema to the Postmedia and David Black papers.

Get with it you guys – the environment is a huge issue and you have a duty to get it in all aspects on the table.

2012: The Year of Energy Politics

December 21, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Tar Sands, Western CanadaAlberta Tar Sands, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, FIPA, fracking, Oil and gas, Politics, Stephen Harper, Water and EnergyDamien Gillis

CBC’s Power and Politics has chosen “energy politics” as the top Canadian news story for 2012 and we at the Common Sense Canadian couldn’t agree more.

Energy is the current which runs through a diverse array of issues presently reshaping our country – from omnibus budget bills that have slashed environmental regulations, to foreign trade deals, changes to our labour rules and, perhaps most significantly, the growing mobilization of First Nations, supported by non-aboriginal Canadians, to oppose many of these initiatives.

2012 was a year that began with Conservative Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver dismissing opponents of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines as “radicals” and ends with the Idle No More rallies sweeping the nation – with support coming in from as far away as Buckingham Palace (or just outside its gates, anyway).

It was a year when two very different visions for the future of Canada and its place in the world collided headlong with each other. One seeking to curb the Tar Sands and new arteries essential to its growth, the other striving to make Canada into a new Saudi Arabia – provider of oil, gas and coal to emerging Asian markets.

Each policy piece from the Harper Government was part of a bigger puzzle, designed to bring its new vision to fruition.

There was the first omnibus budget bill, C-38, which gutted the Fisheries Act, watered down environmental assessment processes and slashed ministry staff in monitoring and regulation. The Common Sense Canadian published retired senior DFO scientist and manager Otto Langer’s first warning of these intended changes to the Fisheries Act, which unleashed a media firestorm and spate of denials from senior Harperites.

We also published the sad farewell letter from one of the world’s top marine pollution experts, Dr. Peter Ross, who lost his job when the Harper Government essentially canned our entire ocean monitoring program. Even one of the world’s top monitoring stations for climate change and arctic ice melt, PEARL, could not escape this government’s ax (for a savings of a whopping million and a half a year).

Clearly, these changes grew out of and helped to further a “see no evil, hear no evil” approach to climate science that is critical to the Harper Government’s hydrocarbon expansion agenda – which also demanded the smoothing of those pesky regulatory hurdles for resource project development.

But one of the Harper Government’s pet projects, the Northern Gateway pipeline, made defending its agenda more challenging, with an unrivaled string of public embarrassments. There was the damning US report on the company’s 2010 disaster in Michigan, then more spills in Canada, a badly bungled PR campaign, the infamous “missing islands”, and repeated blunders at the National Energy Board hearings into its proposal.

Yet, even with these public blemishes on the star of its new energy vision and with mounting evidence of catastrophic, fossil fuel-driven climate change, the Harper Government’s attitude remained unchanged, especially on the international stage. In 2012, we became the first country to formally pull out of the Kyoto Protocol (not that we ever took our commitments serious in the first place). At the same time, Canada was caught by the Guardian, through a leaked memo, working to block a resolution to end to public subsidies for fossil fuels at the Rio+20 summit.

Back in Ottawa, the latest omnibus budget, C-45, picked up where its predecessor left off, slashing the age-old Navigable Waters Protection Act – one of the main beefs of the Idle No More movement.

Provincially, energy politics have dominated the agenda too – from the well-publicized spat between BC Premier Christy Clark and Alberta Premier Alison Redford over revenue sharing from the proposed Enbridge pipeline, to Redford’s new alliance with Quebec Premier Pauline Marois over alternate plans to move bitumen East.

The media and public discourse in BC was particularly infused with with energy – beginning with the NDP and Liberals jostling for positioning on Enbridge, to the emergence of KinderMorgan’s proposed pipeline and tanker expansion for Vancouver as a major urban issue in the lead-up to next May’s election. Add to that natural gas fracking, proposed pipelines and the plan to build multiple Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals on the coast – all of which are increasingly on the media and public’s radar and sure to be election topics. The movement against the proposed Site C Dam, which would power gas and mining operations, is building momentum too.

The NDP has been all over the map on these issues, initially getting behind fracking, new pipelines and LNG plants with few reservations, then, recently, showing signs of feeling some of the public pressure building around these issues. This was evidenced by an op-ed in the Georgia Straight, co-penned by Energy Critic John Horgan and Environment Critic Rob Flemming, promising “a broad public review of fracking” and “immediate changes to protect B.C.’s water resources”.

The party appears caught between the growing concerns about fracking and LNG and a desire not to appear to be too “anti-business” or ignore an opportunity to reboot the BC industry and close the budget gap with increased royalties and related revenues. It will be very interesting to see where the NDP goes on this file in 2013.

Christy Clark, for her part, has left no doubt about her bullish outlook for natural gas and LNG, comparing BC’s potential with this resource to Alberta’s Tar Sands. Some of the nation’s top independent energy experts have poked big holes in Clark’s plan, though, suggesting that her numbers simply don’t add up.

Federally, the NDP’s selection of Thomas Mulcair shook up the political scene and energy debate. Unlike Harper’s former Liberal Opposition challengers, Mulcair seemed to have a firm grasp of energy and economic issues and was prepared to take on Harper on topics others would shy away from.

Take Mulcair’s rendering of the “Dutch Disease” into a Canadian household term. The concept, supported by the OECD and other highly reputable economic institutions and economists, holds that the downside of a petro-state economy is artificial currency inflation, which leads to the hollowing of a nation’s manufacturing sector. New jobs in Fort MacMurray mean layoffs in Hamilton. The fact Mulcair was able to get the traction he did with this discussion and to lodge it – even a little – in the national consciousness is a testament to his oratory skills, political sensibilities, and willingness to take some risks to differentiate himself from Harper. Mulcair also helped to re-frame pipeline politics, opposing Enbridge but getting behind the notion of shipping bitumen East (the source of another emerging public energy debate).

But the reach of energy politics extended far beyond provincial and national borders this year, as the Harper Government negotiated a new trade deal with China, ostensibly to stimulate investment in Canadian energy resources. The Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPA) came under great scrutiny – particularly in these pages – for eroding Canadian sovereignty and enshrining much diminished environmental protections as the law of the land for years to come.

Harper seemed caught off guard by the backlash generated by this deal and several concurrent foreign buyouts of Canadian energy companies – which seemed to be the very purpose of FIPA. When he finally approved the $15 Billion purchase of Nexen by Chninese state-owned CNOOC and Canadian gas company Progress Energy by Malaysian giant Petronas, it was late on a Friday afternoon, to avoid the media glare that had been focused on these deals. He promised then, surprisingly, that this marked the “end of a trend and not the beginning of one” with regards to such foreign buyouts of Canadian energy assets (PS we aren’t buying that line here).

Compounding the public and media pressure around FIPA and these energy company buyouts was the controversy that erupted from a coal mine in northeast BC. When it emerged the company, HD Mining, was hiring all imported Chinese workers for its Murray River mine, a heated back-and-forth ensued between the United Steelworkers’ Union and a Chinese worker who has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, alleging the union is “creating contempt for Chinese people”.

In the midst of this fracas, an embarrassed Immigration Minister Jason Kenney promised to review the labour rules that allowed this situation to happen. And yet, it was Human Resources Minister Diane Finley, with Kenney’s support,who just recently made the changes to the Canadian labour regulations that enable companies to hire foreign temporary workers for lower wages than they would pay Canadians.

The Harper Government’s labour policy seems designed precisely to encourage situations like the one at Murray River, directly undermining the government’s “jobs” rhetoric around resource development.

Likely as a result of all this scrutiny, Harper has delayed on ratifying the Chinese FIPA. A campaign led by social media-driven public advocacy groups Leadnow.ca and Sumofus.org generated over 80,000 petition signatures and thousands of letters and submissions to government officials protesting the proposed FIPA.

But the biggest story in 2012 has been the unprecedented coming together of aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians to jointly confront these hydrocarbon projects and the Harper Government’s vision for Canada’s future. Even in the waning days of 2012, we saw another victory by First Nations and environmentalists working together to secure a long-term ban on coal bed methane fracking in the Sacred Headwaters. That the Clark Government saw this as politically expedient – or necessary – is interesting in and of itself.

It remains to be seen where the Idle No More movement goes from here. Will its intensity subside in the new year like the Occupy Movement of last year, or will it be forged into a formidable political force, crystallizing the burgeoning sense of discontent amongst many Canadians with the direction our political leaders are taking us?

2013 holds the answers to many other burning energy questions, like how the Enbridge pipeline hearings will conclude or when KinderMorgan will formally file its plans. Will this American company’s experience be smoother than that of Enbridge, or will an unprecedented urban environmental movement rise up to block its path? What role will natural gas will play in BC’s provincial election? Will this new energy alliance between Alberta and Quebec and the vision to pipe the Tar Sands East pan out? Perhaps most interesting, will Harper ratify or abandon FIPA and will he keep his word on nixing future foreign buyouts of Canadian energy assets?

Stay tuned to the Common Sense Canadian in the New Year to find out. Or maybe the evening of December 31st. Knowing the Harper Government, that’s when all the really important changes to our national fabric will be announced.

Despite PM’s Assurances, Floodgates Open to Chinese Govt as Encana, PetroChina Partner

December 16, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, International, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Tar Sands, Western CanadaAlberta Tar Sands, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, China, FIPA, fracking, Oil and gas, Politics, Stephen HarperKevin Logan

“For the right price, anything is for sale” -Anthony Lambert, President and CEO of a Canadian arm of Chinese state-owned Sinopec, known as Sinopec Daylight Energy

Canadians are seeing red this week after a series of announcements reinforce concerns about the loss of Canadian resources and sovereignty.

The focus has been the Alberta Tar Sands, but natural gas plays are also in the mix. Four days after Stephen Harper boldly stated that the CNOOC/Nexen and Petronas/Progress takeovers marked the “end of a trend and not the beginning of one,” one of Canada’s largest oil and gas companies, Encana, announced a joint venture in a 4-plus billion dollar gas play in which PetroChina will have a 49.9 percent stake. A “minority” position such as this is seemingly an end-run on the “new,” yet unexplained criteria dictating the level of Chinese/foreign investment the Harper government would support.

CNOOC’s Nexen bid was a full takeover of a Canadian-based company with international holdings, however its mainstay is the Alberta oil patch and part of that takeover also includes a percentage of Syncrude. These companies have enjoyed years of Canadian taxpayer subsidies and support to make them profitable. The benefits of that multibillion dollar effort will now accrue to a Chinese “SOE”, or State Owned Enterprise, turning Canada into what the Alberta Federation of Labour’s recent detailed report describes as “China’s Gas Tank”.

Those supportive of foreign SOE investment in Canadian resource plays dismiss the concerns raised as unwarranted paranoia. A sort of “Reds under the bed” fear being mocked by folks like Bob Rae, outgoing liberal leader and supporter of Chinese investment. But this dismissive attitude shared by the supporters of such investment neglects the heart of the matter.

Joseph Stalin once said, “When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use,” which is in keeping with the Sinopec President’s view that “anything is for sale at the right price.” This point is pivotal. Chinese investment by SOE’s seems counter-intuitive to a “free enterprise” approach – a central plank in the ideologically driven agenda of Stephen Harper. So why does he abandon such principles along with his base and run far from the centre over to what many view as the extreme left?

It is largely due to the fact that SOEs have deep pockets and are paying real, serious, above-market premiums to snatch up Canadian oil and gas assets, which is enriching longstanding players in the patch and their investors. And it is true that they are doing so because there is profit to be made, and not simply in owning Canadian resources raw and sending them home to China.

But it’s really about the age-old geopolitical game of control over the world’s resources, exploiting them elsewhere while leaving one’s own in the ground, as United States has historically done (however, now you will note that they too are falling prey to exploitation and export of their “Homeland” resources.) All of which will fuel the growth of China’s economy into what people are proclaiming will be the world’s largest economy in as soon as a decade or two.

China has a stake in many nations around the globe and the forces that historically “nation build” are at work once again in boosting China to the forefront of the world, unfortunately their model has even less trickle down to the Chinese people, as they often live in squalor and cities that could house millions remain empty.

To accommodate this agenda the Harper government has created a very attractive investment “climate” in the Tar Sands. A much-reduced royalty rate, heavy subsidies, a gutted environmental regime, paralyzed environmental assessment processes. All this while accruing decision making to the top. Cabinet (read Chairman Harper) will decide cross-border pipelines, terms of trade and investment deals, criteria for foreign investment, and he has taken measures to lock in the new legislative framework dictating resource development and exploitation for decades to come.

During the minority reign of the Harper administration, he oversaw the single largest divestiture of a “public asset” in our nation’s history when he constructed the offloading and privatization of Petro Canada. The result was a gift to industry, a huge loss to Canadian taxpayers and it closed the public window we had on this industry from well to pump. Which is why Harper was so precise with his language when he approved the CNOOC/Nexen and Petronas/Progress takeovers.

Indeed, the first thing out of his mouth at the press conference announcing the approvals was, “To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead.” However that is precisely what is occurring, no matter how you slice it.

But Harper ignores this reality and doubles down on his bold misrepresentation of the facts, “It is not an outcome any responsible government of Canada could ever allow to happen. We certainly will not.” And they should not, Harper realizes its not what Canadians want, which is why he takes to the mike and says these things. So why does he do the exact opposite?

Foreign investment is already a serious issue in the oil and gas industry in Canada. Forest Ethics recently released a brief explaining how Canada’s major oil and gas players are on average 71% “foreign owned.” In fact, the major players in the patch are almost entirely foreign owned; it is only the Canadian-based companies that bring that percentage down from fully foreign ownership. But even those Canadian-based companies are owned by foreign interests in the majority. All of this equals an exodus of cash from the country, only outdone by the flow of oil, gas and other raw resources.

If Canadian companies cannot find the money to invest in the oil and gas patch, despite outgoing Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s criticism that corporate Canada is sitting on over 600 billion dollars of “dead money” and Canadian “SOEs” needed to be sliced, diced, demonized and sold off, why are Chinese SOEs all the rage?

Jim Stanford, a highly respected, independent-minded Canadian economist, suggests the notion that Canada cannot capitalize its own resources and must therefore rely on foreign investment is balderdash. Moreover, the Conservatives still boast that Canada and its banking industry are a pillar of stability in a sea of insecurity and crashing economies. All of which runs counter to the oft-repeated cliché that “we need” this foreign investment, and is instead looking much like a foreign takeover of not only our resources but our sovereignty.

This is where the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPA) comes in. This government continues to claim that somehow FIPA is good for Canadian investment in China, yet there is no evidence of that. Preeminent Canadian economist Diane Francis, a polar opposite to Jim Stanford, would probably agree with him on this one, as she has suggested the FIPA should be ripped up. Meanwhile, even Canada-US free trade architect Brian Mulroney states that we are still at least a decade away from free trade with China.

So why FIPA? Why now? In corporate parlance this amounts to a “Friendly Takeover”, as both entities agree there are “synergies” with the syncrude and are supportive of the entire notion, therefore it’s not a hostile takeover.

In promoting this deal, the Harperites will tell you that we have dozens of other FIPAs and this one is simply just another one. However that too is very misleading. The others are largely with countries where Canadian-based companies, typically mining companies, are operating.

Once again, these companies maybe Canadian-based, but they are largely foreign-owned, and they base themselves in Canada because our legislative environment is accommodating to their agenda. Canada is to mining what Switzerland is to banking and the FIPAs we negotiated are in most cases as draconian for the less-developed nations as the Chinese FIPA is for us.

These FIPAs guarantee the exploitation of mineral rights in less developed countries, for Canadian-based mining companies, and ensure the governments are removed from the equation, unable to protect the environment or increase royalty rates. In fact, the governments are reduced to cheerleaders on the “promotion” side of these agreements. Any move to regain sovereignty, charge respectable royalties, protect the environment or impose any restrictions on unbridled exploitation is met with severe financial penalties, meted out by a new corporate judiciary established by these agreements, which works in secret and is entirely profit-motivated.

This is exactly what is happening to Canada with the Chinese FIPA.

However, a huge push back has occurred and Harper seems frozen in his tracks on this one.

After having restructured the very fabric of the nation with two omnibus bills – the largest we have ever seen – he has still not ratified the agreement. Ironically, Omnibus bills have been used very sparingly in history. In 1971 Liberals used the practice to establish the “Department of the Environment,” and then again in 1982 to establish Trudeau’s infamous “National Energy Program.” The Conservatives fought it then and had the bill divided into eight different sections. On the other hand, Conservative governments have used the practice more. They used it once to enact NAFTA, and now twice since Harper obtained his majority – for the opposite purpose of omnibus bills of old, which established our internationally-renowned environmental practices and the nation-building, sovereignty-securing laws of Trudeau’s NEP.

As we pointed out in painstaking detail here at the Common Sense Canadian, the recent Omnibus bills run contrary to the FIPA treaty process and, in our opinion, render it null and void. This could be at the very heart of the delays we are now experiencing. There were many petitions and expressions of outrage, however, the argument we forwarded was indisputable and has put the Harper Cabinet in a box. And now we have an opportunity to follow up and here is why.

If FIPA is ratified, it will mark the end of Canadian sovereignty in the oil and gas patch. It will also ensure that China becomes the major driver of activity in both oil and gas. The terms are so favourable for “Chinese investment” that it will force partnering with them on resource plays as evidenced in the recent PetroChina/Encana joint venture announcement. The FIPA offers such attractive terms that partnering with any other private companies or SOEs would put one at a disadvantage. This essentially makes the draconian FIPA terms the new de facto law of the land and not simply a bilateral investment agreement. Can you imagine the Harper government or any other government making laws – or restoring those recently stripped away – which apply to everyone but Chinese companies?

I raised these points and many others in my submission to the FIPA environmental assessment process and we encouraged you to do the same. The campaign was picked up by savvy internet politicos who run Leadnow and similar organizations. The end result was thousands of submissions to various levels of government on this issue, on top of the 100 thousand-plus petition signatures these groups garnered against FIPA. Others chimed in as well, and the result so far has been positive.

However there is still an opportunity to communicate once again our adamant disapproval of the FIPA agreement. It is important we do so in order to send a message loud and clear that we do not approve locking in subsidies, much-reduced royalty rates, much-diminished environmental processes and reduced protection for over thirty years – an eternity in terms of the timeline required to liquidate our oil and gas resources.

It may have made sense in the beginning to give the resource away and subsidize its growth, in an effort to get a capital-intensive exercise on a solid economic footing, but at a time where balanced budgets elude us, debt is racking up at any amazing pace and our standard of living is eroding, we cannot afford to allow these conditions to persist so long into the future. It will spell our demise.

So take the time and visit this link related to the Chinese FIPA and share these concerns with them. At this point the Minister of Industry has stated uncertainty around the ratification of FIPA, therefore we need to continue to apply pressure in order to at the very least delay, if not entirely avoid, ratification of this treaty. Our future and our kids depend on it.

You can visit this link and copy and paste the letter there, as it is still relevant and they invite more comments to that final FIPA Environmental Assessment, despite the closing of the public window for submissions.

Comments on this report may be sent by email, mail or fax to:

Environmental Assessments of Trade Agreements
Trade Agreements and NAFTA Secretariat
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
Fax: (613) 992-9392
E-mail: EAconsultationsEE@international.gc.ca

Mike Smyth: Kinder Morgan Facing Increasingly Uphill Battle

December 14, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, KinderMorgan, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this column from the Province’s Mike Smyth on the increasingly rocky ride Kinder Morgan is facing with its proposed mega-expansion to the Trans Mountain Pipeline and oil tanker traffic through Vancouver. (Dec. 9, 2012)

There was a time when pipeline projects were so common and boring they wouldn’t need a public-relations campaign or saturation advertising to sell them.

But that was before climate change, the Alberta oilsands, the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the pipeline rupture that made a mess of the Kalamazoo River. It was before heightened public concern over oil tankers off the B.C. coast, and long before a company called Enbridge proposed the Northern Gateway pipeline, and unleashed B.C.’s biggest environmental battle in a generation.

The Enbridge project has become a political flashpoint in the province, with the NDP’s Adrian Dix firmly opposed to it, and Premier Christy Clark’s Liberals laying down strict conditions for supporting it. But while the politicians and pundits duke it out over Enbridge — and the company soaks the airwaves with pro-pipeline ads — another company called Kinder Morgan is quietly going about its business. It’s B.C.’s “other pipeline”: the $4-billion proposal to twin the existing TransMountain connection from Alberta to Burnaby.

Like Enbridge, the company wants to pump heavy diluted bitumen from the oilsands to the B.C. coast, where it would be loaded onto tankers for shipment to Asia. Oil-tanker traffic would swell from the current five to 25 ships per month. But unlike Enbridge, there’s been no massive ad campaign, though one might come later. For now, Kinder Morgan has opted for a series of lower-profile town hall meetings along the pipeline route.

“We’ve taken a very local approach,” says Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada. “The team working on the project is based in Vancouver, and the people meeting one-to-one in the communities are British Columbians.”

The town hall events feature fresh-faced young people staffing the information displays. A couple of friendly and casually dressed company officials — Michael Davies and Greg Toth — lead the sessions.

Not a Calgary power suit in sight.

The low-key approach seems to be working for the company, which has taken much less flak than Enbridge in the province’s pipeline wars.

But that could change. Protesters have appeared at most of Kinder Morgan’s events — “we know them by name now,” Davies jokes — though the biggest excitement before last week was a streaker flashing by in Nanaimo.

Then the tour hit Victoria, and a busload of protesters drove up and swarmed the meeting. (Yes, that would be a bus powered by fossil fuel.) The protesters took down the company’s information displays and sat on them, preventing the public from seeing them. A few of the company’s placards were torn and vandalized with markers…

…While Adrian Dix has soundly condemned the proposed Enbridge pipeline, the NDP leader has remained officially neutral on Kinder Morgan, saying the company has not officially applied for a pipeline permit yet. It’s a technical loophole Dix has seized to avoid taking a position on an increasingly controversial issue that could end up dividing his own party.

Cargo Vessel Crashes Through Deltaport Coal Terminal

December 14, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, coal, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Check out this story from the Sightline Institute’s blog, on a cargo vessel that smashed through the coal terminal at Deltaport recently. (December 7, 2012)

That’s a photo taken this morning of British Columbia’s Westshore Coal Terminal. A cargo vessel smashed through the center of the loading trestle—thus the big gap in the middle—putting it out of commission and dumping coal directly into the Strait of Georgia. The coal contamination is clearly visible as the dark streaks in the water.

CKNW News has the story. Here’s video footage of the scene.

It’s hardly encouraging that Port Metro Vancouver, the same agency that operates this facility, is trying to build new coal shipping capacity on the Fraser River.

Today was a rough day for coal shipments in the Northwest. Also this morning, a coal train broke down on the tracks in the middle of Mount Vernon shutting down local streets for nearly an hour.

See original post: http://daily.sightline.org/2012/12/07/nothing-can-go-wrong-at-coal-terminals/