Tag Archives: Oil and gas

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

June 20, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaAdrian Dix, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, ipp, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, private river power, Salmon, Water and EnergyRafe Mair

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

Plains Midstream Spill Impacts May be Permanent

June 14, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&GasOil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Globe and Mail on the likely lingering effects of the ongoing Plains Midstream pipeline spill in Alberta. (June 12, 2012)

A sunny break from heavy wind and rain allowed crews to come out in force to battle an oil spill that has stained one of Alberta’s most important rivers – one that, environment officials warn, is likely to never be completely cleaned up.

Rough weekend weather and a flooded Red Deer River had impeded efforts to clean up a spill of 160,000 to 480,000 litres from a Plains Midstream Canada pipeline. But on Tuesday, a response team of nearly 200 workers set to work skimming, vacuuming and absorbing the spill.

It was difficult work, made worse by the high water that is hampering access to the 25 pools of oil that Plains crews have identified in back eddies along the 30 kilometres of river that stretch between the ruptured pipe and Lake Gleniffer, a reservoir whose dam has helped contain the spill.

“It’s been very, very difficult to access a lot of these areas because of the high flows, the very rapid current,” said Martin Bundred, the lead man on the spill for Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resources Development. “We have to use airboats to get in [and there are] lots of sandbars lots of obstacles – whole trees coming down the river. It’s not a nice place to be.”

In fact, the challenges of cleaning an oil-stained river are so great that it’s unlikely that all of the oil will be cleaned up. Some will deliberately be left alone to degrade naturally, an unwelcome prospect for those whose backyards and pasture lands along the Red Deer have been blackened from the leak.

“There are situations where it does make sense to leave things in place,” said Mr. Bundred. In this case, “with a very light crude, you’re going to get degradation very quickly.”

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

June 14, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar SandsAlberta Tar Sands, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, rafe mairRafe Mair

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.

Jet Fuel Tankers in Fraser River Would Put Critical Fish Habitat at Risk

June 12, 2012Energy and Resources, Fisheries, Oil&Gas, Urban & TransportOil and gas, Salmon, Transportation and Urban PlanningOtto Langer

As Parliament debates the watering down and the neutering of environmental legislation in Canada you again must be made aware that the lack of leadership by Environment Canada and DFO (with the laws they now have) have allowed one of the most irresponsible projects to be proposed for construction in the world class Fraser River and its globally significant estuary that is home to some of the largest salmon runs and migratory wildlife populations in the world. If Bill C-38 is passed as is, this valuable river and key fishery habitat will receive less protection than it has over the past few years despite what the Minister Ashfield has promised – a more focused effort to better conserve key habitats and fisheries. This promise is nothing less than a cruel hoax.

The Fraser River is is one of the most critical fishery rivers and key fishery habitats in the world and that fishery does not now receive proper protection and with Bill C-38 it will get much worse. In the past decade DFO and EC have not done their job in enforcing their sections of the Fisheries Act and above all have compromised proper and comprehensive environmental reviews that can harm fish and migratory birds and their essential habitats.

The Vancouver Airport Fuel Facilities Corporation (VAFFC) attempted to barge jet fuel into the Fraser River in 1988. The then Federal Environmental Review Process held proper hearings and rejected that proposal in 1989 as too great a threat to the estuary and public safety. Imagine – better environmental protection some 23 years ago! Despite that finding, the VAFFC refused to build a safer option – a pipeline from the Vancouver Airport to the Cherry Point refinery and large fuel dock near Bellingham in Washington State.

Two years ago VAFFC detected that times had changed and environmental laws were not being applied (despite the misleading claims of the opposite from DFO Minister Ashfield and Ministers Kent and Oliver) and applied to ship giant Panamax tankers of cheaper jet fuel from offshore locations into the very fragile and highly productive Fraser River Estuary, build a large offloading terminal several kilometers upstream and there store up to 80,000,000 litres of toxic and highly flammable jet fuel on the shores of the Fraser River. So as to ignore the Federal CEAA process, whose weak regulations did not even trigger a comprehensive or public panel review of this major project, VAFFC asked the BC Environmental Assesment Office for a voluntary review and Port Metro Vancouver (PMV) then accepted the Province as a lead in a so called harmonized review with PMV. Most citizens and local city councils have found this arrangement totally unacceptable and unethical.

Why would the Federal government allow a junior government lead review when this is a federal airport, federal port, federal migratory birds, federal fish and habitat and relates to a federal pilotage authority, federal navigable waters and Canadian shipping laws? Also why would the Federal Government delegate environmental impact review to the port (PMV) that is dedicated to industrial development in fish and wildlife habitat areas? This is one of the greatest conflicts of interest imaginable. In this project, PMV will indeed profit from any project approval. Only a lower level Environment Canada official to date has stated in writing that this project is unacceptable (August 2011) – i.e.: “The project would present a new and unacceptable risk to the locally, nationally and internationally-important fish and wildlife populations of the Fraser River Estuary, including migratory birds and species at risk…” and “Environment Canada is of the opinion that there is a limited ability with currently available technologies to effectively control a potential Jet-A fuel spill in the Fraser river Estuary”.

Last week the PMV released a new report rationalizing the low risk of tanker traffic in the Fraser River. This is despite the fact that the VAFFC could have up to 100 tankers and barges a year entering the estuary full of toxic and flammable jet fuel. We have had a safety systems engineer review the tanker traffic report produced by offshore consultants for PMV. A covering letter from VAPOR and the VAPOR tanker traffic critique are attached for your information and action.

It is urgently requested that BC MLAs and federal MPs look into this matter, in that we are witnessing a serious slide into a high risk activity in this world class fish and wildlife habitat area and the BC and Federal environmental assessment processes seem unwilling to relate to this project in a a serious or meaningful way. Also if Bill C-38 is passed by the Harper Government, this type of irresponsible risk exposure to our environment and public safety is bound to increase greatly over the next several years and our living resources in the river and their habitats will again be further degraded. Our children and grand children will damn those that allowed this to happen.

It is urgent that you now act on these matters in that Canada will be greatly diminished if this type of irresponsible environmental planning and assessment is allowed to continue.

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

June 7, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fisheries, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, PoliticsBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, Salmon, Stephen HarperDamien Gillis

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.

Spoof Video Turns New Enbridge Ad Campaign on its Head

June 6, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gas, VideoDamien Gillis

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.

Shell Hiring TransCanada to Build Pipeline to Proposed Kitimat LNG Plant

June 5, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gasfracking, LNG, Oil and gasDamien Gillis

Read this report from Reuters on Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s plan to hire TransCanada Corp to build a new pipeline from Northeast BC to Kitimat to supply natural gas to Shell’s proposed liquid natural gas plant there. (June 5, 2012)

CALGARY, Alberta, June 5 (Reuters) – TransCanada Corp will build a C$4 billion ($3.8 billion) pipeline to serve Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s planned liquefied natural gas plant on British Columbia’s northern coast, the company said on Tuesday.

TransCanada, Canada’s No. 1 pipeline company, said it would design and build a 700-kilometer (434-mile) line capable of shipping 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day from Dawson Creek in northeast British Columbia to Kitimat, where three LNG plants, including Shell’s facility, are planned.

Northeastern British Columbia contains some of the world’s largest unconventional natural gas reserves. The Montney and Horn River shale gas deposits alone contain trillions of cubic feet of gas.

However the U.S. market is glutted with its own shale gas production, and British Columbia’s producers have pinned their hopes on LNG exports to tap lucrative Asian markets.

TransCanada said in a statement that it expected to complete the line by the end of the decade, pending regulatory and corporate approvals.

The line will run near Enbridge Inc’s Northern Gateway oil pipeline project, which will also end at Kitimat. Currently in regulatory hearings, Northern Gateway faces strong opposition from environmental groups and many of the aboriginal communities along its planned route.

That opposition has already added more than a year to regulatory hearings, a delay that encouraged the Canadian government to put in new rules capping the length of such sessions.

However TransCanada’s pipeline is expected to get an easier ride.

With little risk of sustained environmental damage from a rupture, natural gas pipelines have not faced the same opposition as oil lines. Also, some aboriginal communities, such as the Haisla who live near Kitimat, have a stake in LNG projects.

“I don’t think it will get the same sort of resistance (as Northern Gateway faces),” said UBS Securities analyst Chad Friess. “In addition, it’s starting from square one and subject to the accelerated regulatory review that the Canadian government has put out there.”

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

May 31, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Christy Clark, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, rafe mairRafe Mair

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.

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

May 30, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasDamien Gillis

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.

Power for Proposed BC LNG Plants Called into Question

May 28, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATERBC Hydro, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, fracking, Oil and gas, Water and EnergyDamien Gillis

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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