Category Archives: Pipelines and Supertankers

Enrbidge's burst pipeline near the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, 2010

More BS than Bitumen Flowing From Alberta After Third Recent Spill

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, ,
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A story in yesterday’s Edmonton Journal on the latest pipeline spill in Alberta, this one near Elk Point, was more full of crap than the province’s rivers and farms are full of oil these days.

This spill, from Enbridge’s 541-kilometre Athabasca Pipeline – which officials are pegging at 230,000 litres of diluted bitumen – comes on the heels of two others in less than a month, including the Plains Midstream spill just last week near Sundre and Pace Oil and Gas’ well leak near Rainbow Lake in late May. Of course, that was Plains Midstream’s second disaster since April, when its Rainbow pipeline produced the province’s largest leak in 36 years.

In other words, it’s been a bad couple of months for an industry trying to win over public opinion for two major bitumen pipelines proposed to traverse British Columbia (Enbridge and Kinder Morgan). This dizzying succession of spills has seriously complicated what was a tough sell to begin with.

But you wouldn’t know it from the stream of public relations bs flowing from Alberta politicians and industry reps in yesterday’s Journal story.

Here’s Darin Barter, spokesman for the Energy Resources Conservation Board:

Having the incidents so close together is unusual and “not indicative of Alberta’s level of safety,” Barter said.

“Given the enormous amount of oil and gas infrastructure in this province, it’s a very safe system.”

He said the recent spills are “very different incidents.”

Phew! One’s a well leak, another a burst pipeline, this one a leaky pump station. So the sheer variety of ways these things can screw up is reassuring, if I understand you correctly, Darin?

Or how about Enbridge’s official comment on the subject, from spokesman Graham White via email Wednesday:“The vast majority of the spill is on the site and there is no impact to waterways or wildlife.” No impact to waterways…really? That’s right. Because, you see, “The area affected is our pump station site, some area along the pipeline right-of-way that is also (owned by) Enbridge and part of a local field.” (A field not owned by Enbridge, incidentally).

And fields don’t have water tables beneath them, which in turn don’t connect with nearby rivers and streams. So Mr. White must be right. Nothing to see here folks.

Then again, we should not be surprised by Mr. White’s attitude. His company has, after all, been quite up front about the fact they do spill a lot of oil and will continue right on doing so.

Mike Diesling, press secretary for Alberta Energy Minister Ken Hughes, feels the same way. According to him, Alberta has a “good” pipeline system. “The problem is we have 400,000 kilometres of pipeline and occasionally, we will have a spill,” Deising said.

According to the Journal, the province’s premier isn’t too concerned either:

Premier Alison Redford said pipeline spills “happen sometimes” and are part of balancing social and economic factors.

“I think people have a pretty good appreciation of the fact that there does need to be a balance and it is unfortunate when these things happen,” Redford said.

Yes, we do understand that it is terribly unfortunate when these things happen, Madame Premier, but what “balance”? Balance between oil spilling and not spilling?

So, if I have this straight, when you have a whole lot of pipelines carrying a whole lot of oil, you are bound to get spills. Check. And when these spills happen, they’re not a big problem, because…well, spills happen.

The message from Alberta’s oil intelligentsia is, then: “Oil spills happen, but don’t worry, because oil spills happen.”

Are we clear? About as clear as the black sludge the keep spilling all over the place.

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Rafe Mair interviewed Adrian Dix earlier this year on his party's positions on the environment and resources in BC

Dear Mr. Dix: A Letter From Rafe Mair to BC’s Future Premier

Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , , , , , , , ,
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Dear Adrian Dix,
 
The recent polls show that you and your party have a wide lead over the Liberals and Conservatives – something which gives many of us who care deeply about the environment encouragement, including thousands of us who are not usually supportive of the NDP. It is those people whom I have in mind today.
 
The political spectrum has altered substantially in recent years with a wide gap in centre, which your party is clearly occupying. To do this with success you must address concerns about the nineties when the NDP was in office. Apart from the fact – a big one – that the NDP had, ahem, leadership problems, in fact the NDP had a much better track record in fiscal matters than painted by the “right”, especially when one considers the sudden trauma of the “Asian ‘flu”, which all but ground our forest sector to a halt.
 
The Campbell/Clark Government has, with some success, painted the NDP as a government that bankrupted the province.
 
I believe that you should deal with those issues – though not at length, because voters want to know what you will do, not what you have done. The fact is, however, that the Liberals will present themselves as steady stewards of the public purse, which they clearly are not, and in my view you must be able to match allegations with facts.
 
Before I get to the environment, one other issue. When we sit around the fire relaxing with a toddy, we often muse that it would be wonderful if the federal and BC governments could just get along. The fact is that we are a federated state which sets out – not always with clarity – the powers, rights and obligations of each government. The system is built on tension, not ass-kicking, and the Premier and her party ought to know this.
 
Premier Clark is presently dealing with the Kitsilano Coast Guard issue with kid gloves. That may be a good policy in issues like this but in the larger sense, the people of BC, I believe, want the provincial government to stand up boldly to the Ottawa bully, especially in these days where the Harper government wishes to devastate BC’s environment.
 
This segues neatly into the environment issue. This issue does not lend itself to compromise. One of the “weasel” words from the developer is “mitigation”. You either protect the environment or you don’t, and three obvious issues come to mind: fish farms, private power and the pipeline/tanker debate.
 
On the first, you simply must force them to go on land. I believe it was a mistake to turn that power over to the Feds but that’s been done and we must deal with what we have. I suggest a protocol which requires farms to move on shore within a reasonable time or their licenses will not be renewed. The fish farmers have all denied they do to harm the environment for over a decade and they must be brought to heel. You cannot simply pawn the issue off to Fisheries and Oceans Canada – the people expect you to act.
 
Your position on private power (IPPs) is more than a bit hazy. You seem to be opposed to them but will, after you make the contracts public, still honour the contracts. I realize this is a tricky issue because if you go further, you will be painted as anti-business. Can you not declare that any licenses granted but not acted upon will be taken away? On other proposals, and I especially refer to the Klinaklini, surely you must say to them, “Proceed at your peril”.
 
And, of course, you must revive the British Columbia Utilities Commission – with teeth, as in days of yore.
 
This leads to BC Hydro which, if in the private sector, would be in bankruptcy protection. Much of that unhappy situation results from the IPPs from whom BC Hydro was forced to buy electricity at hugely inflated prices. Hydro has some $40 BILLION dollars in future payments for power it does not need. How can an NDP government deal with this without taking action on these contracts? Isn’t this analogous to the mayor elected on a reform ticket still honouring sweetheart deals between the former mayor and his brother-in-law? These IPP contracts are scandalous payments to the government and its political pals and cannot be protected by “sanctity of contract”
 
Your position on pipelines and tanker traffic is, in my view, pretty solid but must be restated at regular times. I understand that you have postponed your decision on the Kinder-Morgan line until you see what their new proposal is. That probably made sense in the Chilliwack by-election but otherwise makes no sense at all. It is a time bomb now – how can that situation be improved by increasing the line’s capacity?
 
The 2013 election will largely be fought on environmental issues – for the first time in my long life.

You must walk the tightrope of support of our environment and the rightwing allegations that you are anti-business. You must expect that, well before the election, the federal government, with a sweetly smiling Premier Clark, will announce big contributions to the province so that we, too, can get rich out of the Tar Sands and be prepared for that. The answer is like the joke where a man asks a woman to go to bed with him for $50,000. She muses about her obligations to her kids, etc. and blushingly agrees. The man then asks if she will go to bed with him for $50 to which the indignant woman exclaims, “What do you take me for, a common prostitute?” to which the man replies, “We’ve already established that, madam; now we’re dickering over the price.”
 
The lesson is our province is not for sale at any price.
 
Sincerely,
 
Rafe Mair

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Pipeline spills are not the exception in Alberta, they are an oily reality

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers,
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Read this article by Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun. “Something is exceptional when it happens so infrequently that when it does occur, it’s a surprise.

“But I know from my reporting career, which was ushered in by a series of massive pipeline spills in Alberta more than 40 years ago, that these events occur with depressing regularity.

“The pipeline industry has had almost half a century to work on the problem, yet oil spills, explosions, fires and toxic pollution as a consequence of ruptures are anything but exceptional. They still happen on an almost daily basis.”

Read more: Pipeline spills are not the exception in Alberta, they are an oily reality

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Oil-soaked marsh from Plains Mainstream spill (supplied photo)

Plains Midstream Disaster Should be Wake-Up Call Re: Enbridge Proposal

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Every one of us stops and looks at our own situation sometimes and asks, “Why the hell am I doing this?”

This self examination may be about personal habits such as, “Why do I play the slots when they’re mathematically impossible to beat?” Or, “Why do I do this job when I’ve long had an alternative I would love?” Or it may be, “Who do I think I’m kidding when I say I don’t drink too much?!”

I had this blood rush to my head the other morning when I read the Globe and Mail’s articleon the Plains Midstream oil line burst into the Red Deer River. This is the second major spill for Plains Midstream within the past two years and bids fair to be the largest oil disaster in Alberta’s history. (Remember that this is ordinary crude not the Bitumen Enbridge and the tankers are all about.)

This article debates the ways and means to take pipelines either through, above or under a stream or river – Enbridge would cross 1000 of them.

This had me reflecting on the proposed Enbridge twin lines (one to carry the bitumen and one to take condensate back to the Tar Sands) over the Rockies, into the trench, over the Coast Range through the Great Bear Rainforest to the head of treacherous Douglas Channel.

We’re starting to hear all about how Enbridge will apply its talents to the safest pipeline money can buy; at the same time we’re hearing about how much safer tanker traffic is than in days of yore.

What the hell are we doing even considering this project, let alone debating how “safe” we can make it? Do we, as a people, have to put our hand on the stove to confirm all the evidence that we’ll get burned? And why are we doing all this as a favour to Alberta and Ottawa?
 
It suddenly struck me that it was like was talking with my doctor about how to remove my appendix when I had no symptoms of appendicitis. If I didn’t need to take a risk then why would I? So the surgeon could make some money? So it must surely be asked about the Enbridge pipeline and the subsequent tanker traffic, “WHY IN GOD’S NAME ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT PERMITTING THESE CERTAIN DISASTERS IN OUR PRECIOUS LAND AND COASTLINE?”
 
There has never been a less necessary catastrophe in the making in our history.
 

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Widespread Oppostion to Gutting of Fisheries Act Through Bill C-38: Sun Special Report

Canada, Energy and Resources, Fisheries, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, , , , ,
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Read this investigative report – the second part of a four part series from the Vancouver Sun examining the Harper Government’s clash with conservationists over its omnibus budget bill and the Enbridge pipeline. This installment focuses on the concerns of fisheries biologists, academics, conservationists and First Nations over Harper’s plan to gut the Fisheries Act through Bill C-38. (June 6)

Otto Langer has devoted his adult life to protecting fish habitat.

Now he wonders if it was all for nothing. The retired head of habitat assessment and planning for the federal Fisheries Department in B.C. and Yukon describes the Conservative government’s planned changes to the Fisheries Act as the biggest setback to conservation law in Canada in half a century. And he takes it very personally.

“I feel I have wasted my lifetime, that I should have done something else,” says Langer, who now predicts a gradual decline in fish habitat if the changes take effect.

Through a massive package of proposed laws in Bill C-38, Ottawa plans to limit federal protection of fish habitat to activities resulting in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, sport or aboriginal fishery. Across the country, hundreds of scientists have condemned the change.

“It’s going to remove freshwater protection for most fishes in Canada, which can’t be a good thing,” says University of B.C. zoology department professor Eric Taylor, who also cochairs a federal committee that advises the government on species at risk.

“Habitat is not just a place to live; it’s a place to breed, rest, avoid predators, get food.”

Taylor argues the Fisheries Department should be fighting for biodiversity. “They should have an interest in protecting Canada’s aquatic biodiversity – for all Canadians. They now seem to be abandoning that.”

Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Keith Ashfield has said the changes will focus federal protection efforts “where they are needed,” provide clearer and more efficient regulations, and create partnerships with provinces, aboriginal groups and conservation organizations.

He promised to provide better enforcement of the rules, and also to protect “ecologically significant areas,” such as sensitive spawning grounds or where the cumulative impact of development is a concern.

So-called minor works, such as cottage docks and irrigation ditches, will be identified and no longer require permits, said Ashfield, who refused to be interviewed for this article.

Critics consider the bill a regressive step that is certain to have serious impacts on fish.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Canada+fish+face+upstream+battle/6737525/story.html

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Spoof Video Turns New Enbridge Ad Campaign on its Head

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LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics and environmental organization the Dogwood Initiative have teamed up to produce a video spoofing pipeline builder Enbridge’s recently-launched ad campaign. The embattled company is seeking to sway public opinion in BC in favour of its highly controversial proposed twin pipelines linking the Alberta Tar Sands with the Port of Kitimat on BC’s central coast.

The spoof video, entitled, “A Path to a Canada No One Will Recognize”, riffs on Enbridge’s new campaign and slogan, “It’s more than a pipeline. It’s a path to our future.” The rebuttal video comes from a newly formed partnership between BC-based cosmetics company, LUSH, and the Dogwood Initiative, which has been campaigning against Enbridge for several years.

 

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Clark Skips Western Premiers’ Conference to Avoid Pipeline, Tanker Talk

Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western Canada, , , , , ,
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The refusal of Premier Clark to represent BC at the annual Western Premiers’ Conference is a disgrace!
 
This is a very important conference. It allows Premiers to discuss many important issues. No doubt the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines and resultant tanker traffic will be on the agenda and Clark hasn’t the guts to deal with this. This means that when Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who favours the pipelines and tankers, raises this issue, whether on or off the record, there will be no premier of BC to put our views on the table.
 
It wasn’t until Bill Bennett, in 1976, pressed the matter that BC was even part of this process. I went to all five conferences when I was in cabinet and was made chair of a special WPC committee to assess federal intrusion into provincial constitutional rights which became very important during the later run-up to patriating the Constitution. This is but one example of many where the conference becomes a political power in the country.
 
Premier Clark has obviously concluded that notwithstanding the photo-ops this conference would provide, the prospect of making an ass of herself is more important.
 
All British Columbians have been shamed by this bad excuse for a Premier.

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Enbridge Unveils Multi-Million Dollar Ad Campaign to Sway Public Opinion in BC

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Read this story from Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail on Enbridge’s new multi-million dollar ad campaign in an attempt to win the “social license” it recognizes it needs to push its  controversial Northern Gateway pipelines through BC. (May 30, 2012)

The battle for the hearts and minds of British Columbians over a proposed oil pipeline has ramped up after Enbridge Inc. launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign – and Greenpeace Canada responded by unfurling a giant, eye-catching banner on Lions Gate Bridge.

The tactics revealed on Tuesday by the opposing sides in the debate are dramatically different.

Enbridge is going with a finely crafted print and television campaign created by Kbs+p Canada, with media relations directed by Hill and Knowlton, a leading communications company that claims to have “invented the concept of public relations.”

On the other hand, Greenpeace and others opposed to the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal to link Alberta’s oil sands to a West Coast tanker port are going with low-budget drama, petitions and social networking.

At the same moment Paul Stanway, an Enbridge spokesman, was unveiling the advertising package in an office tower on the edge of Stanley Park, environmental activists were rappelling down the girders of the bridge on the other side of the park, just a few city blocks away.

The banner flapped in the wind briefly before the Greenpeace climbers, who had been unable to secure the lower edge, pulled it in.

Mr. Stanway said with a smile that he hadn’t had a chance to see the “no tar sands pipelines” banner, but it was clear his company is hoping the ads will have a more lasting impact.

“We need social licence to build this pipeline,” he said in explaining the need for the advertising campaign. “We need public support …This is something we’re more and more focusing on.”

The advertising campaign promises job creation, environmental protection and economic stimulus, linking it all together with a catchy tag line: “It’s more than a pipeline. It’s a path to our future.”

Mr. Stanway said Enbridge is spending “less than $5-million” on the ads, which will run in newspapers and on television over the summer starting on Wednesday, and which may later expand to radio.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/enbridge-ad-campaign-intensifies-pipeline-battle/article2447105/

 

 

 

 

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Power for Proposed BC LNG Plants Called into Question

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Read this op-ed in the Vancouver Sun from Vancouver businessman and Conservative Party of BC candidate Rick Peterson, raising the question of where all the power is going to come from to support the extraordinarily energy-intensive Liquid Natural Gas Plants proposed for BC’s coast. (May 28, 2012)

The Liberal government is pitching Asian investors and buyers on an ambitious plan for a string of proposed LNG plants on the province’s north coast. Premier Christy Clark is saying that the first three of them will be up and running by 2020.

What she’s not saying, though, is how she’ll come up with the huge amounts of electricity required to compress, cool, and liquefy the gas for these new LNG plants. Here’s maybe why: BC Hydro simply doesn’t have the capacity to provide even close to the amount of power required for these projects.

It also has no plan to build or buy the power that would be needed. The first three LNG proposals alone slated for 2020 would require about half of the electricity that’s currently consumed by the entire province.

Through its Canadian subsidiary, Apache Corp., a large U.S. multinational energy giant, and along with partners Encana Corp. and EOG Resources, is proposing to operate the first of the three LNG projects for B.C, to be located in Kitimat. Under the terms of its application, Apache is required to source its electricity from BC Hydro and not ‘self-generate’ power by burning some of its natural gas reserves to create its own energy source.

That’s a nice idea — but how practical is it when B.C., despite having some of the best electricity generating potential in the world, is a net importer of power? And where do we import our power from? From Washington State and Alberta. And how is it generated? By coal-fired power plants, at more than three times the carbon emissions of natural gas generating facilities.

So while the government continues to extol the virtues of requiring our new industry to purchase ‘clean’ electricity from BC Hydro, the planners are quietly working on plans to import more coal-fired electricity from out of province. Go figure.

If you go to Google Earth and look at the Pacific North West and Alberta, you’ll see no borders. Pollution and carbon emissions know no borders as well. Our policies should reflect this.

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Gordon Campbell receives an award for his

BC Liberals Disguised Oil and Gas Support with Fake Green Label

Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , , , , , ,
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In my last piece, “The myth of BC Liberal ‘nuetrality’ on Enbridge”, we established that not only are the BC Liberals far from neutral, but rather have been and continue to be complicit in a complex web of legal, administrative and political strategies designed to forward a multi-billion dollar infrastructure development program to enrich the largest most profitable companies on earth at the expense of our Province’s autonomy, economy and environment.
 
Since revealing some of the details that support these claims, issues have been unfolding rapidly on a number of fronts.
 
The NDP has established a “legal team” to look into some of the issues I specifically raised in the piece. This undertaking should fully explore and divulge the many maneuvers the BC Liberals have undertaken over the span of both Gordon Campbell’s and Christy Clark’s time in office which support the largest, most aggressive oil and gas agenda Canadians have ever experienced. As the issues come to the fore from this process I will continue to explore the history of the BC Liberals’ complicity in the oil and gas agenda.
 
Specifically, BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix singled out one pressing issue – the Equivalency Agreement (EA) I and others have worked to bring attention to. This is an action item. Part of the Liberal ‘missing in action’ strategy, defined by the Official Opposition as Government gone “AWOL”, is to let the EA stand despite recent changes by the Harper government which have fatally jeopardized its legitimacy. In legal terms, if BC continues to accept that they have no role or influence while letting the political and jurisdictional wrangling continue unabated, our ability to shape the future of these developments will be further eroded.
 
While there was significant foreshadowing of the BC Liberal desire to streamline approval processes, it was done under the guise of a clean energy strategy. In the 2010 Speech from the Throne, the BC Liberals included their desire to establish Equivalency Agreements in order to overcome “Byzantine” bureaucratic bungling that thwarted the much lauded Climate Change Strategy. Never mind that longstanding bureaucrats responsible for administering these processes see no need for such changes, as duplication was long ago eliminated and further streamlining is hardly required in functional terms.
 
2010 also saw the implementation of the Clean Energy Act and much to do about the green legacy Campbell was establishing; little known to us then was the fact that the augmented approval processes where going to be applied to infrastructure projects to export Alberta’s Dilbit, hardly clean and far from green. In fact, it appears the BC Liberals used their Climate Change Strategy roll-out to couch the required notice needed for the Equivalency Agreement that is now being applied to the Enbridge Pipeline Project, which may explain why no input from stakeholders ever occurred in the 60 days thereafter – a requirement laid out in the act in order to enable these agreements.
 
At the time, it was difficult to see through the puff and pageantry that surrounded the Climate Change Strategy and Clean Energy developments. There was a great deal of very public support for what amounted to a privatized power agenda for some of the largest companies on earth – and a mere two years later we are seeing the that the Clean, Green Energy strategy has served privatized power well.
 
In the next three months, British Columbians will be forking over 180 million dollars to private power producers, paying between $68-100 per Megawatt hour, meanwhile spot markets are hovering around 8 dollars per MWh. Hence, BC Hydro (read you) will be footing the bill for a mark-up of at least 700%! The Campbell “Green” strategy clearly becomes more about cold hard cash for private energy corporations than anything remotely environmentally related.
 
Meanwhile the environment Minister remains “Mum” on the current Joint Review Panel for the propsed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines. This despite having revealed his efforts to grease the skids of the project and the uncovering of his government’s coy ‘duck and cover’ media manipulation with respect to Northern Gateway. As a recent letter writer in the Burnaby Now enunciates, “BC Must Take a Stand Now” – in order to pull out of the EA process which affects four major oil and gas developments. However, he closes the piece saying he does not expect the government to do it.
 
And nor do I, which is why I went to great lengths to point out how the EA was established and how we might simply render it null and void.
 
Need further proof that this government will once again sit on its hands and look the other way while our sovereignty continues to erode? Then simply read this excerpt from the Premier’s response to Robyn Allan, whose open letter called for the revoking of the EA:
 
We appreciate the time that you have taken to share your views and insight with us and have forwarded your correspondence to the Honourable Terry Lake, Minister of Environment, for his review and consideration as well. You can be assured that the specific points you have raised in your letter will be included in related discussions between Minister Lake, members of his senior staff and officials in the Provincial Environmental Assessment Office.
 
A diplomatic PFO if I ever saw one. Ms. Allan had to follow up and re-request an actual response from the parties responsible for signing away our right to properly assess, participate and influence the single most pivotal development agenda in the Province’s history. Here is an excerpt of that re-request:
 
I am following up with you as the reply indicates that you will review and consider the letter and discuss the points with your officials.  However, it does not confirm that you will address my comments in a reply to me.
 
Robyn Allan has an impressive breadth of hands-on experience and professional training which dictates her belief that if we do not move now to revoke the EA we will have lost one of our final opportunities to restore our decision-making capacity. This is of great importance and I look forward to hearing exactly what the newly established legal team Dix has appointed does in order to ensure this opportunity is not missed.
 
Everyday British Columbians can act now and pressure those in political office to move on this and if the BC Liberals do not revoke the agreement we can shine the light on how it was established outside the norm – as I did in my last piece – which may work to render it null and void.

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