I’m perplexed at a notice I received asking me to join a protest against a proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline near Smithers. This line is designed to transport northeast BC natural gas from a junction point at Summit Lake, north of Prince George, to Kitimat for processing into LNG so it can be shipped to Asian markets. It has flown largely beneath the radar, perhaps because the NDP Opposition haven’t opposed it.
What are the risks posed? Are we talking wildlife migration paths? Do spills pose a threat? Who is doing it and what sort of approvals do they require? When was the application? Were there public meetings, and if so where and what was the reaction?
I’m perplexed at the provincial government’s apparent imminent approval of a new fish farm in Clayoquot Sound. How can this possibly be done before the Cohen Commission report comes out? Has no one in that catastrophic government in Victoria read the recent and growing evidence of serious disease endemic to fish farms? It strikes me that approving a fish farm before Mr Justice Cohen issues his report is like Israel building houses on conquered land – an effort to create faits accompli on the theory that once approved, it will be difficult to dismantle them.
This government is not only incompetent – we can recover from that – but without a conscience or a soul, without the ability to know right from wrong.
I’m perplexed at the flip in the recent opinion column by the Vancouver Sun’s Barbara Yaffe on the proposed Enbridge pipeline. Several weeks ago, after months of approving the proposition, Barbara concluded, on the evidence that had recently come out on the company’s disastrous spill in the Kalamazoo River, that it was unsafe to build the line.
In theVancouver Sun, same edition, Craig McInnes, who’s bringing some common sense to that paper, makes the obvious but little stated observation that with the Enbridge pipeline: “A, there is a risk and B, we are willing to accept the risk of a catastrophic spill if we get paid enough.”
He goes on to say, “As a Canadian who treasures our physical environment regardless of where the political boundaries lie, I find that equation to be unacceptable.”
Amen.
Then I’m perplexed with former federal Environment Minister David Anderson’s approval of Premier Clark demanding more money for a project Anderson has just stated his unchangeable opposition to.
Mr. Anderson, I know you don’t like me from another movie, but please take my advice and read Mr. McInnes’ column referred to above.
I’m perplexed that no one seems to care about Kinder Morgan’s proposed massive increase to pipeline volumes and tanker traffic through Vancouver in environmental terms.
I’m also perplexed that Premier Clark isn’t also claiming a greater share of the revenue from the Kinder Morgan lines, existing and, if approved, future lines.
I will be dealing with Clark’s position in next Monday’s TheTyee.ca but suffice it to say that in Canada we have free passage of goods and resources through neighbouring provinces. Ms. Clark evidently, to add to the sum of her massive ignorance, doesn’t understand that and fails to put herself in Alberta Premier Redford’s shoes and fails to ask what she, Clark, would do if Alberta demanded a share of BC royalties and stumpage on our resources in exchange for passage through Alberta.
In the non-perplexed department I commend Grand Chief Stewart Phillip’s clear and unequivocal stand against Enbridge and his statement that First Nations will, if the project is approved, blockade it.
Frankly, I’m perplexed that we’re still debating these issues and that our governments haven’t put an end to them, once and for all.
The first in a series of new public service announcement videos (see below) from Tanker Free BC – a Vancouver-based organization taking on US energy giant Kinder Morgan’s proposal to twin the Trans Mountain Pipeline to Burnaby – is being launched today. The one-minute video, titled “Some Risks Are Not Worth Taking”, was produced through the volunteer contributions of a group of communications and film industry professionals opposed the plan to bring 400 supertankers a year filled with Tar Sands bitumen to South Coast waters.
I was privileged to be a part of the production, as one of the video’s producers and a board member of Tanker Free BC.
The campaign to draw attention to tanker traffic in Vancouver has recently heated up with the release of the “Oil Spills and Vancouver’s Stanley Park” report by the Wilderness Committee and Tanker Free BC at the first in a series of local town hall meetings. This video launch complements the growing buzz surrounding this important issue.
The video asks viewers to consider the risks posed by the almost one million barrels of tar sands crude oil that would be passing Vancouver’s beaches daily if Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans are approved. Tanker Free BC Campaign Director Sven Biggs said “people all around the inlet are not only standing up to say, no, I’m not okay with that, they are ready to do something about it.”
I look forward to working with this group on future projects for Tanker Free BC; we are already working on the follow-up to this first project as we work to raise awareness about this vital issue.
Check out it this video news story from Global TV on a new report from the Wilderness Committee that highlights the risks to Stanley Park from an oil tanker spill connected with Kinder Morgan’s proposed twinning of the Trans Mountain. (July 11)
Animation of acoustic impacts on whales (Oceans Initiative)
by Julie Andreyev
Scientist Rob Williams is concerned about the Enbridge, Kinder Morgan and Vancouver Airport proposals that will increase tanker traffic along BC’s coast.
It’s a gray day in Knight Inlet, B.C. The calm silver surface of the water occasionally breaks with the fin of a dolphin. Dr. Rob Williams, marine conservation biologist, alumnus of UBC and head of Oceans Initiative, is helping PhD student Erin Ashe to count Pacific white-sided dolphins as they swim by. With the boat engine turned off, they are listening for orcas. They hear a sound — in the air — not over the hydrophone. It sounds like a storm coming.
Williams pulls in the hydrophone and gets ready to head home before the rainstorm hits. He looks around. The boat is surrounded by a solid school, hundreds of dolphins, storming by at top speed like horses galloping. Out of the corner of his eye he spots the dorsal fins of orcas. Over the course of a half an hour the orcas herd the dolphins into the bay, closer and closer to the shore. In a panic the dolphins leap to get out of the way of the whales. The largest male orca breaches the water aiming for a dolphin, striking it. Stunned, the smaller animal floats motionless in the water while the whale comes back around.
Williams has researched the local dolphin, orca and other at-risk marine mammals since 1995. “You forget what extraordinary wild animals the orcas are, what extraordinary animals the dolphins are, and how they live their lives. And, of course, their lives depend on being able to hear signals — like an orca is coming. That reminds us how important it is to keep the ocean as quiet as possible so that they can hear what they need to hear.”
Currently a Marie Curie Research Fellow at University of St Andrews in Scotland, Williams spends half the year doing field studies and conducting research off B.C.’s coast, and the other half in a university setting. He is concerned about the recent proposals for increased oil and fuel shipping in and out of B.C. “The orca populations off Vancouver Island are listed in the Species at Risk Act. The populations off the south coast of Vancouver Island are in worse shape,” says Williams. More ship traffic could have a disastrous effect on these and other threatened whale populations.
In 2008, Williams and Ashe partnered with Dr. Chris Clark at Cornell University to conduct an ambitious study of ocean noise from ships operating in B.C. coastal waters. Ship noise affects dolphins and whales that rely on sound to communicate, detect prey and avoid the ships themselves. Threatened humpback, blue, killer and fin whales are at risk of death by ship strike, and all marine mammals are threatened if there is a catastrophic oil spill.
Sound is the key sense for dolphins and whales to find their way around, detect predators, find food and communicate. The sound frequency range within which whales communicate and echolocate corresponds to the frequency range of ship noise. Ships hundreds and even thousands of miles away interfere with the acoustic space of these animals. With more ship traffic, the ability for whales and dolphins to communicate, search for prey, and avoid predators will be compromised.
“Mind-bending” is how Dr. Peter Tyack, formerly Senior Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and now a professor at the University of St. Andrews, describes the distance that sound travels through the oceans. He cites a study where sound released underwater in the southern Indian Ocean could be heard in Bermuda and Monterey, California, thousands of miles away. Whales use sound for communication, sometimes over a thousand kilometers. “Marine mammals have evolved over the last tens of millions of years ways to depend on sound to both explore their world and stay in touch with one another… In this frequency range where whales communicate, the main source globally in the planet for noise comes from human ships. The effective range of communication [between whales] goes from a thousand kilometers to ten kilometers,” says Tyack. “If this signal is used by males and females to find each other for mating, imagine the impact this could have on the recovery rate of endangered populations.”
In the presence of ships and ship noise, whales have to expend more energy to find food, and they have to change their calls to use higher frequency sound and increased volume. If a whale can’t find food because of ship noise, his survival may be threatened; if a mother can’t hear and locate her calf, they risk being separated and the calf killed by predators; if whales can’t hear each other to locate mates, their population recovery is in jeopardy; if dolphins can’t hear approaching orcas, they can become prey.
On July 25, 2009, The Sapphire Princess, a massive cruise ship owned by Princess Cruise Lines, headed into the Port of Vancouver. The crew and holidaying passengers were unaware that the body of a 70 ft. long female fin whale was wrapped around the ship’s bow. It had been there probably since the ship toured the area between Alaska and Vancouver Island.
The fin whale, after the blue whale, is the earth’s largest living animal and is listed as “protected” by the International Whaling Commission and “endangered” by the World Conservation Union. Hits can result in external and internal injuries, suffering and drawn-out deaths. Williams has conducted studies of ship strikes that have injured or mortally wounded whales. The areas with highest risk for ship strikes with humpback and fin whales (Dixon Entrance, north North Haida Gwaii Islands, Hecate Strait) correspond to areas where the proposed Enbridge ship traffic would occur.
Propeller wounds on orcas are relatively common and the highest risk area for them is Johnstone Strait. “Port expansion and a proposed pipeline for carrying oil from Alberta to BC’s north coast (with associated oil tanker traffic) would increase ship strike risk for all three species,” says Williams. South from Kitimat through Hecate Strait, Johnstone Strait and around the southern tip of Vancouver Island have areas where whales and ships overlap. The sound of ships in the same area where whales are feeding is believed to cause the whales to be disoriented, which could increase the risk of potential strikes. Williams believes that “the few known cases of collisions involving fin whales suggest that mortality due to ship strike for this species may already be approaching or even exceeding sustainable mortality limits.”
At noon on August 20, 2007, a Ted Leroy Trucking Ltd. barge moving fuel and heavy equipment listed and drifted into Johnstone Strait’s Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. The barge tipped over, losing to the sea its cargo of eleven vehicles and a fuel truck loaded with 10,000 L of diesel fuel. The resulting spill affected 62 square kilometers of marine environment. The slick on the surface of the water persisted for days until it dispersed into the larger body of water. “All the oceanographic factors that help concentrate salmon into a bottleneck area, such as narrow areas in Johnson Strait, will attract orcas,” says Williams. In fact, during the days of the barge spill, scientists estimated that 25% of the threatened northern resident orca (NRKW) population was seen within its vicinity. “Oil spills have been identified as posing a threat to the recovery of transient and resident orcas, and this proposed [Enbridge] pipeline and associated tanker traffic are expected to increase oil spill risk substantially.”
During Williams’ field studies he found that “67% of the NRKW population was found to have visited the area of Robson Bight – Michael Bigg Ecological Reserve on one ‘superpod’ day, which makes this population highly vulnerable to extinction due to stochastic, catastrophic events.” The southern resident population off southern Vancouver Island is composed of only three family groups, and it is common to have 100% of the small population travelling together in Haro Strait. An oil spill could easily affect the entire population.
The Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 caused losses of up to 41% to two groups of orcas that have yet to recover to pre-spill numbers. As large as the Exxon Valdez, Panamax-class vessels are the type that would service Richmond. The Burnaby expansion would use the larger Suezmax tankers that carry nearly 1 million barrels of oil. Even larger VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) tankers – bearing up to 2 million barrels of diluted bitumen – would set sail from Enbridge’s port at Kitimat. If a significant number of whales in a threatened whale population were directly affected by another spill, losses to the population could be potentially beyond recovery.
Says Williams, “Any time you have an increase in ship traffic there is risk to dolphins and whales. In the worst-case scenario you could have a spill. Even in the best of circumstances ships make a lot of noise and whales rely on sound. Whales are at risk of ship strikes. In whale populations that are recovering their numbers from whaling, we have to be concerned about these factors. Underwater noise should definitely be one of the factors we consider when assessing the environmental impacts of industrial development applications.”
Julie Andreyev is a new media artist (video/audio/interactive) who teaches at Emily Carr University.
Let me say that this was directed to Weston because he is my MP and it applies with equal force to all Tory MPs from British Columbia.
I’ve been asked if I would resign were I in John’s position and I say YES. Now, I realize that’s easy to say – he who has not sinned has not been tempted. I have no doubt, however. I sat in a cabinet that had half a dozen ministers who would have resigned under these circumstances. Premier Bill Bennett recognized this and it was taken into his consideration, I’m sure.
Now, under our system – such is the measure of its idiocy – all elected members on the government side must often compromise, otherwise the government couldn’t function. There were occasions where cabinet passed policy that I had spoken out against in the past and I told the press that when cabinet makes a decision all must support it. But these were areas of policy, not matters that go to the root of your commitment to your voters and your constituency. They were not matters of conscience. Any who have sat on the board of, say, a golf club will readily get the distinction between matters of business and matters of conscience. Premier Bill Bennett understood the distinction – Stephen Harper, no doubt also understands but he knows his backbenchers well and knows that there is almost nothing that goes to the conscience of his MPS because they have none.
Let’s be clear what issues we’re talking about here.
The environment of BC as a whole is not merely threatened but is on the brink of disaster from policy decisions already taken by the Harper government. I refer, of course, to its support of the Enbridge pipeline and expansion of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline to Vancouver; its open support of tankers loaded with deadly bitumen from the Tar Sands; its ongoing support of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to promote fish farms while their statutory basic raison d’etre is to protect our salmon; and its utter abandonment of protection of fish habitat as demonstrated in its gutting of the DFO in BC.
These, I contend, are not merely matters of policy but go the very root of what British Columbia is and as such simply cannot be supported by any Member of Parliament from our province.
Ask yourself this: if in the past election Tory candidates were asked if they support the above policies, I suggest that not one of them would have answered yes. If they had been and they replied that they were for these policies they would never have been elected and they know that.
I pick on Weston because, as I say, he’s my MP. In fact, the entire BC Conservative caucus ought to resign en masse. That they haven’t and won’t brands them as they are – lickspittles and toadies who put their parliamentary seat before their duty.
My prediction is that Weston will be rewarded with a cabinet seat in the next major shuffle – after all, he has been faithful to Harper and he’s moved his family back to Ottawa, which move could well have come from a nod or a wink from Harper.
After all, if sacrificing your constituency and your province for personal gain is to mean anything, there must be a reward and in my view it will come.
A short time ago you held a meeting in Lions Bay to announce that through your sterling work and doggedness we will soon have a National Health and Fitness Day…or is it a whole week? Well done, I’m sure.
The thought may occur to some that this is a little dollop given to backbenchers to see that they are busy little bees and not doing the devil’s work like raising real issues that concern an MP’s constituents and home province.
I invite you to answer a few questions on the minds of, dare I say, most British Columbians who want you to listen to them, then take a public stand. I certainly understand, as I’m sure most people do, the need for party solidarity under our system. This must, however, surely take a back seat to forthright and courageous deeds when the very essence of your constituency and province are at issue as they are in BC today. The Harper government, with steady support of the Victoria Liberals, have implemented policies that will destroy us.
Do you know that Enbridge, which wishes to construct a 1,100 km twin pipeline through our northern wilderness, averages a spill a week? That they’ve had hundreds of spills over the past decade?
Do you know that the pipeline traverses the Rockies, then the Coast Range, thence through one of the most important and beautiful wilderness areas in the world?
Do you know that bitumen, the substance being transported, is different than conventional crude oil in that it is virtually impossible to clean up and that it has a “shelf life” of 100 years? That its viscosity means it clings to everything it touches? Have you studied the Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo River, a location easy to access, and seen that two years later what the company described as ”not a major spill” has not been cleaned up yet and likely never will?
Have you done your thinking and reasoned that pipelines in this region would produce spill after spill in terrain that even a helicopter would have trouble getting to?
Have you examined the tanker traffic issue carefully or, indeed, at all? Do you not accept the fact that despite all efforts, there will be a spill? That bitumen, unlike regular crude, sinks like a stone? That where ordinary crude can be surrounded by rafts, closed in then scooped up, that bitumen sinks and, thus, for all intents and purposes, can not be recovered?
Have you ever been to Douglas Channel and assessed the challenge to a tanker? Do you not know that double hulling, while helpful, scarcely solves the question of human error, nor does it remove the certainty of a spill which will make the Exxon Valdez look like a non-event? That in recent years there have been four major accidents with double hulled tankers on within the last year and that these were collisions with other ships?
Do you not realize that the Kinder Morgan line poses a huge threat to the Port of Vancouver and entire south coast, much of which you represent?
John, your government has just approved, through the notorious Bill 38, of the rape of fish habitat. Because you voted for it you must have approved this monstrous act. That, for example, salmon spawning rivers are now all but unprotected? Do you not understand The Pacific salmon and their habits? Did you know, for example, that Coho spawn in creeks and ditches, and that Municipalities often approve development in the area because they’re told the creek or ditch has no fish values?
One day you should go down to the Musqueam Nation and look at Musqueam Creek, where I fished when I was a boy, and see that thanks to the Band it still has a Coho run. It’s a tiny creek, yet is very important as are other small streams throughout the province.
I close with this question: didn’t we send you to Ottawa to represent us and work on our behalf? Don’t we have the right to expect you to fight our battles in public, not tamely accept huge and permanent damage to your province? Why do we need you – to look after late pension cheques and send birthday cards to elderly constituents?
In reality, you clearly put your duty to your leader and your party ahead of your obligations to fight our battles and you might just as well be a fencepost with hair.
John, you support fish farms, support the BC government’s raping our rivers (indeed you’ve given grants to these bastards), you support legislation to all but eliminate federal protection of fish habitat, you approve of the environmental desecration of our salmon spawning grounds, pay no attention to the sure carnage which will, as night follows day, destroy our God-granted environment if pipelines and tanker traffic are approved.
Come to think of it, John, just what the hell have you done for our constituency? More importantly, what have you and your fellow Tory lickspittles done to save our province from being environmentally trashed by your corporate friends?
I’m reminded of Oliver Cromwell’s words to the Rump parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately…Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
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.
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.
Read this story from the Vancouver Observer on a meeting hosted this week by the Board of Change – a Vancouver-based group of progressive businesspeople concerned about environmental issues – to discuss the pros and cons of new oil pipelines and coastal tankers in BC. (May 25, 2012)
A collection of business-minded Vancouverites gathered at the SAP building in Yaletown Thursday evening, hoping for a lively—and perhaps heated—debate about the merits of pipeline and tankers on the BC coast.
There was just one small problem: almost everybody in the room was on the same side.
The evening’s panel discussion was hosted by the Vancouver Board of Change, a network of local businesses, nonprofits, and students dedicated to the pursuit of both money and meaning. Panelists included outspoken political commentator Rafe Mair; ecologist and author Rex Weyler; and Art Steritt, Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations.
Organizers said they requested the participation of several different companies and individuals to speak to some of the “pro-pipeline” arguments, during a discussion focused on BC’s two major project proposals (the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion terminating in Vancouver).
Unfortunately, not one of the people or groups they asked actually agreed to take part.
“We asked 15 or 16 organizations and people on the pro side, and nobody said yes,” explained Board of Change director Monika Marcovici.
For a while, the Board was hopeful that North Vancouver blogger Vivian Krause would attend to share her views on the pipeline and politics. But in the end, Krause said she couldn’t make it.
“Everyone has an excuse,” Marcovici said.
In an effort to balance the scales, moderator Robb Lucy introduced the idea of having audience members don their oil industry hats to ask some tough questions, since all three panelists shared the same “no pipeline, no tankers” perspective. Many of the people in the audience were Board of Change members, and organizers hoped this event would help clarify the issues so that the group would feel comfortable taking an official position.
Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on Kinder Morgan’s decision to scale back the planned capacity for its new twinned pipeline to Vancouver from 850,000 barrels of Tar Sands crude per day to 750,000, following lower than expected demand from shippers. (May 24, 2012)
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has reduced the size of a planned expansion of its pipeline to the Pacific Coast after fewer shippers than expected signed 20-year con-tracts that would allow surging oil supplies to be shipped to Asia, the company said on Wednesday.
Kinder Morgan now plans a $4.1-billion expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline to the Vancouver area from Alberta, increasing capacity to 750,000 barrels a day from 300,000. That is down from last month’s estimate of 850,000.
It had expected enough con-tracts to support a $5-billion project with crude production from the Alberta oilsands forecast to more than double over the next decade. But a few potential shippers it thought would sign onto the lengthy obligations had failed to obtain their boards’ approvals by the deadline, prompting the reduction, Kinder Morgan said.
The Trans Mountain expansion is the second multibillion-dollar proposal aimed at opening up lucrative new markets in Asia for Canadian oil producers, now captive to U.S. customers amid a glut that has led to bargain-basement price discounts.
The first, Enbridge Inc’s $5.5-billion Northern Gate-way pipeline to Kitimat from Alberta is the subject of public hearings that began in January.
Both projects face opposition from environmental groups and some native communities in British Columbia. Vancouver city council has also come out against the Kinder expansion, which would increase tanker traffic in the city’s harbour.
Ottawa has signalled strong support for new pipelines to the West Coast, and is making changes to regulatory reviews aimed at speeding up approvals.
