Category Archives: Pipelines and Supertankers

Public Will Soon Turn on Kinder Morgan…Will the NDP?

December 10, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, Salmon, Water and EnergyRafe Mair

Mike Smyth had an interesting column in Sunday’s Province, dealing with the proposed second and much larger Kinder Morgan Pipeline to Vancouver, which would see a five-fold increase in tanker traffic through Vancouver’s harbour. In it he told us that the company was being very laid back compared with Enbridge, holding a series of public information sessions. Mr. Smyth, quite correctly in my view, said that the public, if only mildly involved now, would change its attitude toward Kinder Morgan.

Kinder Morgan will and indeed is being dishonest with the public. This is no different than Enbridge or any other pipeline – they all maintain that there will be no spills and that, if there are, they will be minor (which is what Enbridge said about Kalamazoo) and quickly cleaned up. This is nonsense and the public will very soon be letting Kinder Morgan know that.

We must all know that corporations simply do not tell the truth except by accident. Their face to the public comes from highly skilled public relations departments and highly skilled and expensive outside agencies.

As we have seen with BP in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, after the tragedy they are quick to find pictures of healthy birds and animals to show that all is well again.

Close to home, the Ashlu private river power project is of interest. Ledcor received its right to dam and divert the river on the basis that migratory salmon would not be interfered with. The permission was in these words:

A decision was taken on November 30, 2009 and was that the authority may exercise any power or perform any duty or function with respect to the project because, after taking into consideration the screening report and taking into account the implementation of appropriate mitigation measures, the authority is of the opinion that the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects. (emphasis added).

To say that salmon have indeed been adversely interfered with is putting it very mildly indeed.

This report from the Wilderness Committee:

More than 3,000 pages of documents obtained separately by the Vancouver Sun and the Wilderness Committee through freedom of information requests show water-flow fluctuations caused by run-of-river hydro projects are killing fish — and the problem is not isolated.

While independent power producers insist their sector remains the cleanest energy option, the documents bolster environmentalists’ long-standing concerns about the industry.

“I’m seeing significant environmental problems,” said Gwen Barlee, policy director for the Wilderness Committee. “And that runs completely counter to what the companies are saying, which is essentially, ‘Trust us with your wild rivers and there won’t be any problems.’ ”

The documents detail repeated short-term fluctuations in water flows, resulting in the stranding and killing of juvenile fish downstream of two plants, Capital Power on the lower Mamma and Innergex on Ashlu Creek, another tributary of the Squamish.

In one incident on Ashlu Creek, on May 8, 2010, 166 salmon and trout fry became stranded due to rapidly dropping water levels. Fewer than half of the fry could be returned to the creek alive. Another 39 fry died during a stranding on April 20, 2011.

Neither hydro operation has been charged.

This happens all over the province – companies get government permission to dam a river, the understanding being that salmon runs will not be harmed, then the salmon runs are extensively damaged.

What is also endemic is the lack of any government surveillance of water used and released by the company. They promise, cross your heart and hope to die, that they will conform to the terms and when they don’t there are no consequences.

While Kinder Morgan isn’t into hydroelectricity, its pipeline will cross many streams and rivers and it too will cross its heart and promise that it will be so careful in fish habitat we have nothing to worry our pretty little heads about.

THEY KNOW THAT THERE WILL BE SPILLS IN FISH HABITAT, THAT THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE HORRIBLE, AND THAT THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT.

But there is much more. If this line goes through there will be upwards of 350 tankers leaving Burrard Inlet every year going through the very dangerous 2nd Narrows Bridge, loaded with deadly bitumen.

We will be assured that there won’t be any accidents and, if there are, why it will all be cleaned up spick and span and that there will be no residual damage.

This is bullshit and they know it.

Kinder Morgan’s Director of Engineering and Marine Development Mike Davies acknowledged at a recent debate in Vancouver that there have been more than 70 spills from the current Trans Mountain Pipeline over its 60 year lifetime. That includes a 2007 spill that drenched a Burnaby neighbourhood in oil – for which the company was found partially responsible and ordered to pay a $150,000 fine by the courts. Then, last week we learned from a National Energy Board report on the spill of 90,000 litres of oil from the company’s Abbottsford tank farm in 2011 that emergency alarms warning of a leak went ignored by operators for hours.

This takes me into politics.

Adrian Dix, the leader of the NDP, won’t take a stand on the Kinder Morgan line until it formally files its application.

This cop-out is raw cowardice. Dix knows as much as he ever will about this pipeline – enough to oppose it no matter how much they will ship.

This is causing us at The Common Sense Canadian to re-think our policy for next May’s election.

Dix is evidently worried that he will be seen as “against everything”. No one, least of all Damien Gillis and I want Dix to be against everything but only those projects that will damage our precious province and all the fauna and flora that our wilderness sustains.

In addition to damage done in any particular place there is the question of the cumulative impact of the half dozen or more oil, gas and condensate pipelines now proposed for BC. No environmental process, Provincial or Federal, has addressed this question.

In fact the process reminds one of a Soviet “show” trial. The result is certain but to make it look good, governments hold hearings where the desirability of the project is out of order, it already being a “done deal”.

As it sits right now, as we survey the scene on environmental matters, there is little to separate the uncaring, corrupt Liberals from the gutless NDP.

‘Power & Energy’ Subject of Intergenerational Dialogue in Vancouver

December 6, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Hydropower, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, fracking, Oil and gas, Politics, Site C Dam, Water and EnergyDamien Gillis

Gen Why Media and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are co-hosting an “intergenerational dialogue” in Vancouver on Tuesday, December 11 to explore various existing and proposed energy projects in Western Canada. Titled “Power & Energy: Connecting the Dots”, the program is the third in a series of “Bring Your Boomers” events, sponsored by Vancity, designed to debate key social issues from different generational perspectives.

In addition to musical performances and a keynote talk by the CCPA’s Marc Lee, the evening will feature a three-way dialogue, with each panelist representing a different generation. I have the privilege of representing Generation Y (a.k.a. “Millennials” – born from the late 1970s to early 2000s), while leading energy and public policy expert Ben Parfitt of the CCPA will represent Generation X. Rounding out the panel is Boomer Karen Cooling, National Staff Representative at the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Adding further generational depth to the discussion will be 11 year-old moderator and First Nations singer/songwriter Ta’Kaiya Blaney – a vocal critic of oil tankers on BC’s coast.

Cooling’s union represents workers in the energy sector, among other areas, and has actively raised concerns about proposed oil pipelines to export Alberta bitumen to Asia and the United States. Her colleague, union president Dave Coles, recently told a crowd of thousands gathered in Victoria to oppose pipelines and takers in BC, “these pipelines are job killers” because they export bitumen without refining it and threaten the environment.

Ben Parfitt has published a number of highly-regarded independent reports on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, in BC. Fracking is also a key focus of a film I’m currently co-directing with Gen Why co-founder Fiona Rayher, called Fractured Land, which examines energy issues in northern BC and Alberta through the eyes of a young First Nations law student named Caleb Behn. The film will discuss the concept of the “Carbon Corridor” – an interconnected web of fracking and tar sands projects, dams, coal mines, oil, gas and condensate pipelines, and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants and tankers on BC’s coast – designed to transform Canada into a major hydrocarbon provider to new markets in Asia.

Founded in Vancouver in 2010, Gen Why Media describes itself as “a production group that collaborates across disciplines to create media, events, workshops, public art and intergenerational dialogues that engage society in new forms of public engagement.” Says Tara Mahoney, Gen Why co-founder and organizer of Tuesday’s event, “Our goal with this dialogue is to engage a broader audience in a discussion about energy policy – a topic that isn’t always very accessible, particularly to young people. We hope to use culture as an entry point into a conversation about energy policy and to find ways different generations can work together to shape these issues going forward.”

Gen Why’s previous “Bring Your Boomers” events have examined topics such as technology, globalization, activism and intergenerational cooperation and featured an impressive list of speakers – including former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine, journalist and activist Judy Rebick, filmmakers Nettie Wild and Nimisha Mukerji, Vision Vancouver Councillor Andrea Reimer, and LeadNow.ca Executive Director Jamie Biggar.

Tuesday’s “Power & Energy” dialogue will also feature a musical performance by popular Vancouver band Brasstronaut. The event takes place at the Rio Theatre – 1660 East Broadway, adjacent to Commercial-Broadway Skytrain Station. Door open at 6:30 and the event starts at 7 pm. Tickets can be purchased online here.

National Geographic: BC’s Great Bear Rainforest One of World’s Top Destinations

December 5, 2012Energy and Resources, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Great Bear RainforestCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Canadian Press on National Geographic’s inclusion of BC’s Great Bear Rainforest in its recent list of the world’s top places to see. (Dec. 5, 2012)

NEW YORK, N.Y. – National Geographic Traveler magazine has named British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest and Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island as being among the world’s “must-see places” of 2013.

The rainforest is “an untamed strip of land” stretching 400 kilometres along the B.C. coast, but its tranquillity has “recently been rocked” by the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project to send oilsands crude from Alberta to a terminal at Kitimat, the magazine says.

An environmental review panel examining the controversial plan will release its report by the end of 2013.

On Canada’s East Coast, Cape Breton lures visitors with its “abundant wildlife, natural beauty and assembly of French, Micmac and Celtic cultures.”

The island’s 300-kilometre Cabot Trail is often ranked among the world’s most spectacular drives.

National Geographic’s list includes four U.S. destinations: Hudson Valley, N.Y.; Missouri River Breaks, Mont.; Memphis, Tenn.; and St. Augustine, Fla.

International locales include Thessaloniki, Greece; Bodo, Norway; Marseille, France; Ravenna, Italy; Jarash, Jordan; Crimea, Ukraine; Malawai; Uganda; Bagan, Myanmar; Raja Ampat, Indonesia; Kyoto, Japan; Valparaiso, Chile; Quito, Ecuador; Grenada.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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

One Step Forward with Fish Farms, Two Steps Back with Proposed Fossil Fuel Exports

November 17, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oceans, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, Tar Sands, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, Alberta Tar Sands, Aquaculture, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, LNG, Oil and gas, Politics, SalmonRafe Mair

A couple of thoughts today.

A promising article on fish farms appears in today’s Vancouver Sun. At face value it looks like great news – the story of fish farming on land with no contact with the ocean.

As I say, it looks great but I want to hear what Alexandra Morton has to say.

The objection industry has always made is that it’s too expensive for them to compete that way. The answer to that, according to the Sun article, is that excrement can be recycled for profit and that expenses such as fish lost to predators, or to kill sea lice are avoided.

There is only one fair way to compare the two approaches: charge fish farms an appropriate rent for their leases to include ALL the environmental losses. This levels the playing field and is only fair.

The market for farmed fish is there as we deplete wild stocks around the world. The trouble is that our wild stocks are not depleted by over-fishing anymore but by allowing poisoned farmed fish to mingle with the wild.

Bringing the farms on land will only happen if ocean farms are taxed their appropriate due.

On another note, no sooner had the news been out that the US was looking to be self-sufficient in energy than the bottom feeders rose as one to tell us this means we must update our mining of the tar sands and the piping of it though BC to the coast then shipping by tanker to Asia. The US will no longer need our filthy bitumen so we must redouble our efforts to bugger up the environment in BC to ship even more of the stuff down our fjords.

What ever happened to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels?

If the rapacious industry must continue to mine bitumen, send it to a refinery in Alberta. Irrespective of US capabilities, there will always be a world market for oil.

Moreover, there is an economic reality being ignored. The price of fossil fuels will reduce considerably over what we figure makes a profit. It’s an open ended market. China takes our bitumen if that’s the cheaper way to get energy, it abandons us if it’s not.

I invoke Mair’s Axiom I: “You make a serious mistake assuming that people in charge know what the hell they’re doing!”

Here we are in BC doing everything we can to press forward with LNG plants to convert natural gas to liquid to ship it to new markets while the gas prices plummet. With “fracking”, supply around the world has dramatically increased. Do we really believe that the third largest country geographically in the world, China, doesn’t have fracking capability either at home or closer than Canada? In fact, they are just getting started.

China has it both ways – it can import from us when supply is short (don’t hold your breath for that to happen) or produce it cheaper closer to home.

We are idiots.

This neatly segues into the question of the next BC budget.

Going into the May election the Liberals will want a balanced budget. One of the main factors will be, of course, income and no prize for guessing where that will come from.

You got it – natural gas. The government hasn’t a clue what that figure will be but you can bet the ranch that they will generously err on the high side.

We must all remember that in 2009 they were more than $2 BILLION short of the real numbers and they got away with it.

Desperate people do desperate things and the false card the Liberals play is that they are better stewards of the economy than are the NDP – even though the evidence is quite to the contrary.

The NDP, in the meantime, have completely lost their minds. They are, you see, going to help the Liberals prepare the next budget! This all from Adrian Dix‘s desire to make the legislature more cooperative.

(I wrote a two-part series in The Tyee, recently on how that can be accomplished and this is not the way).

Randolph Churchill (father of Winston) once said, “it’s the duty of the Opposition to oppose”, and he’s right. My series suggests how that can be done safely.

The greatest fear of any legislator is the “unforeseen consequence” of his policy. Now the NDP are going to join the process so that we will not get the value of “the other side” and the NDP will deprive themselves of any ability to question the budget in the next election because, it will be said, it was the NDP’s budget too.

I, for one, am becoming quickly disillusioned with Dix and Co. Not only are they onside with the government’s energy policy – or prepared to go easy is areas like LNG – they seem to be laid back polishing up the crown they’re sure to get next May.

This isn’t helpful for the public but also puts the NDP into a sort of “drift”. The Liberals can see that and you can bet they will be in better political shape next May than they now are, helped along by the total collapse of the Conservatives.

Mr. Dix, in politics 6 weeks is an eternity and in this old pol’s view you are looking to inherit that which you must earn.

Addicted to Oil: The Politics of Canadian Dilbit Pipelines

November 15, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, PoliticsMiranda Holmes

Not long after the Defend Our Coast rallies, a pollster phones, wanting to know whom I plan to vote for in the provincial election. The first party to unequivocally say NO to tar sands oil in pipelines and tankers through BC land and waters, I tell her.

This causes a bit of confusion, as it clearly isn’t one of the options in front of the caller. So, she asks after some hesitation, the NDP?

Given NDP leader Adrian Dix’s tough talk on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, she might very well think so, but where is he on doubling the capacity of the Kinder Morgan pipeline into Burrard Inlet? The silence is deafening.

Does one conclude that Mr Dix has no intrinsic objection to BC enabling fossil fuel addicts around the world? Because that’s my objection to the pipeline proposals.

Yes, I’m worried – as most people in BC are – about the inevitable environmental devastation oil spills will bring. I’m also concerned about the environmental devastation extracting oil from Alberta’s tar sands has already caused.

According to federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, the damage isn’t just environmental, it is also economic. Back in the spring, he accused the tar sands industry of causing Dutch Disease. And, while Harper & Co spluttered their objections to Mulcair’s claim, the OECD supported his assessment.

Mind you, that was then. It seems Mulcair has had an epiphany. Apparently he has now decided tar sands oil is good for the economy – if it travels east from Alberta, not west.

With the Globe and Mail declaring the Northern Gateway pipeline all but dead and the Obama re-election making the future of the Keystone pipeline less certain, it should come as no surprise to learn – as Joyce Nelson reports at length in Watershed Sentinel – that tar sands mules Enbridge and TransCanada Corp have well-advanced plans for converting existing pipelines to transport diluted bitumen from Alberta to refineries in eastern Canada and New England.

According to Nelson, if these plans – which seem to be attracting little mainstream media attention – go ahead, “more than 1.4 million barrels per day of tar sands crude could be piped through southern Ontario and Quebec – the most populated areas of Canada.”

Which begs the question: Just how crude do Alberta’s exports need to be?

Diluted bitumen is 16 times more likely to leak than conventional crude transported in pipelines and a far greater clean up challenge when spilled, as it was, in the Kalamazoo River.

Appearing on The National recently, fossil fuel dealer Alison Redford smiled patiently and explained to the country that without pipelines through BC to enable Alberta to ship its diluted bitumen to Asia, the province will be condemned to making less than top dollar per barrel from its resources. Really?

If Redford truly wants to maximize the economic benefits from the tar sands, perhaps she should insist, as Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, has suggested, that her province’s oily gunk be upgraded to synthetic crude oil before it’s exported. (Most dealers know you get less for crack than you do for powdered cocaine.)

Neither Enbridge nor TransCanada care whether their package is diluted bitumen or synthetic crude, but everyone along their proposed pipelines should.

Although there are obvious measures we could and should be taking to aid our withdrawal from fossil fuels, as long as Hopalong Harper is in charge, investment in green energy and electric cars is likely to remain even more of a pipe dream in Canada than in many other countries. And, as beneficial as going cold turkey might be for the health of the planet, it is not a viable option.

So, here’s the deal (because apparently someone died and made me king): No new pipelines either heading west or east and henceforth tar sands companies must upgrade their bitumen before it goes anywhere. This won’t help with our fossil fuel addiction or with arresting the impacts of climate change, but at least it might reduce the immediate threat of environmental devastation.

That’s reduce, of course, not eliminate.

Mark Hume Nails Enbridge on Caribou Paper Cheat

November 14, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasRafe Mair

When a clock strikes 13, you can never trust it again.

So it must be for anyone who lies about information he is using to back up a serious scientific statement upon which a great deal is at stake.

Mark Hume had an article in Sunday’s Globe and Mail BC Edition which, in a world of decent journalism, would be a headline story, titled ENBRIDGE CHEATS ON SCIENTIFIC PAPER ON THREAT TO CARIBOU.

In fact Mark does this a lot and our newspaper chiefs should blush with shame but they don’t do that very well. I leave it to you to read this superlative article but suffice it to say that Enbridge has been caught out big time and if it weren’t for Mark they would have gotten away with it.

in a 2011 paper in support of their ghastly pipeline proposal, Enbridge claimed that their project would have little or no impact on caribou.

This issue hasn’t been dealt with much but it should be.

Caribou, like deer, moose, antelope, etc., are ungulates whose main enemy is the wolf. When nature is left alone, wolves kill so many ungulates that their numbers get knocked down, whereupon the wolves, now short of food, starve, while the ungulates recover – and on it goes. Nature is cruel but has rules we break at our peril. The very last thing we should do is interfere with this cycle, which is why it’s so necessary that man’s imprint on the wilderness be as light as possible.

This is why Enbridge is getting concerned enough to put out a presentation, purporting to be based on science, demonstrating its innocence in advance. I add parenthetically, as Mark points out, Enbridge’s proposals cannot be taken in isolation of other impacts.

Enbridge clearly didn’t expect anyone to challenge their work and hung their hat on a scientific paper that simply did not exist. This gets interesting.

In a notation backing their “scientific argument”, the sort which one expects in scientific papers, they referred to “Francis et al 2002”. Hell, whoever checks these sorts of things out?

Of all the bad luck, an environmental lawyer named Chris Tollefson looked up this reference and it didn’t exist!

Ah, but Enbridge has an answer. Whoopsy Daisy, we filed an errata correcting that, and this really should have referred to “Salmo and Diversified (2003)”.

Just a silly little error we cleared up.

Except that pesky lawyer went further and found that Salmo and Diversified (2003) had based their findings on “Francis et al 2002” – the paper that didn’t exist!

Well, you surely ask, “Francis (2002)” must have been something.

Indeed it was. It referred to a power point presentation made by an independent ecologist who had nothing to do with Enbridge to a wildlife conference about, get this, Yukon Caribou!

One expects corporations to hire, shall we say, friendly scientists. In the Kemano Completion case some years ago, Alcan’s entire case was based upon reports from an engineering firm which was nothing more nor less than Alcan’s poodle.

What you don’t expect, God Damn it, is outright deceit!

Propositions you don’t agree with, questionable scientific propositions with, yes. Deceit, no.

Enbridge takes environmental matters so lightly that it expects to be able to publish whatever crap it wants and no one will bother to check them out.

A nosy lawyer and a journalist with the guts to print and we know what we’ve always suspected of this company, better known for its disgraceful environmental disasters than its pipelines.

Now, about that clock that struck 13…

‘Canada’s Carbon Corridor’: Multi-Media Dialogue in North Vancouver Nov. 14

November 12, 2012Energy and Resources, Hydropower, Mining, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar SandsAlberta Tar Sands, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, carbon corridor, Enbridge, Mining, Oil and gas, Site C DamDamien Gillis

This Wednesday evening, the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival is hosting a multi-media discussion of “Canada’s Carbon Corridor” at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver. The event is part of the festival’s Fall Series – a week of films and presentations on outdoor adventure and environmental themes.

The title for Wednesday’s event comes from a term developed by the team producing the forthcoming documentary film Fractured Land – of which I am co-director. We came up with the concept to articulate a big-picture view of the interconnected web of major oil, gas, coal, mining and hydroelectric projects proposed and in development across northern BC and Alberta, and the Harper and Clark governments’ grand plan to export these resources to new markets in Asia. I view the Carbon Corridor as the biggest transformation to Western Canada’s socioeconomic, cultural and environmental fabric since the colonial, “nation building” days of the railroads of the last century. And I don’t think that’s an understatement.

I will be sharing the stage with six other “inspiring Canadians who are working to protect our coast, our environment and indigenous community’s rights and cultures”, according to VIMFF’s web page for the event. That list includes event organizer Megan Martin, young First Nations singer/songwriter Ta’Kaiya Blaney, Ben West of the Wilderness Committee, photographer Zack Embree, Great Bear Rainforest eco-tour guide and activist Norm Hann, and Kim Slater, who ran 1,177 km run across BC in search of alternatives to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline.

My 25 min presentation, titled “Traveling Canada’s Carbon Corridor Through Film: The Making of Fractured Land“, will feature a series of short clips from our forthcoming film, which explores the industrialization of northern BC and Alberta through the eyes of a young First Nations law student, Caleb Behn. I’ll be retracing a recent two and a half week filming journey with Caleb across the Carbon Corridor – through the conversations we had with people in the various communities affected by these projects and visuals of both industrial activity and the spectacular, untouched wilderness threatened by this plan.

In addition to the series of presentations on stage Wednesday evening, a number of environmental organizations will be on hand with additional information about these important issues.

The evening promises to be a dynamic, compelling discussion on the challenges and solutions facing the future of Canada’s economy, society and environment.

Tickets for the “Canada’s Carbon Corridor” event can be purchased here for $15.00 or $17.00 at the door. The show takes place on Wednesday, November 14 at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver (2300 Lonsdale Avenue). Doors open 6:30 pm, show starts 7:30.