To the editor:
The National Energy Board’s recommendation to approve Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline isn’t surprising.
The discredited regulator has given the nod to every oil pipeline file it has ever evaluated. While it’s true this recommendation contains 157 conditions, these cannot fix the major problems associated with this pipeline project.
Kinder Morgan transports diluted bitumen; a material that’s highly hazardous to human health, land, water and wildlife.
If approved, triple the amount of toxic diluted bitumen would crisscross our province, passing near homes and schools, over fertile farmland and across dozens of waterways, including mighty salmon rivers like the Fraser.
Building this pipeline would also mean ignoring firm opposition from First Nations, and undermining Canada’s ability to meet our climate commitments.
The impacts of a diluted bitumen spill anywhere along the pipeline and tanker route would be far reaching and catastrophic, and would impact our environment, our health, the economy, and our communities for decades.
The elephant in the room is that there is no effective way to clean up diluted bitumen once it enters the water.
Response plans and emergency measures won’t change the fact that the technology simply does not exist, and yet this project would see tanker traffic along the busy shipping route through the Vancouver Harbour and out to open waters exceed 400 trips a year.
We are being asked to accept these enormous risks in the name of economic benefit. But with oil prices staying low, the United States lifting its crude oil export ban and an emphasis on alternative energy sources, the economic case for a pipeline to tidewater is evaporating.
The bottom line: The Kinder Morgan pipeline is not worth the risk. The Prime Minister says that while the government may grant permits, only communities can grant permission.
Speak up this summer at federal public meetings that are taking place along the pipeline and tanker route. Tell the government that British Columbia doesn’t grant social license to Kinder Morgan.
Christianne Wilhelmson
Executive Director
Georgia Strait Alliance
