Dear Sir:
I went to the Enbridge community advisory board meeting the end of March in Kitimat as an observer.
After listening all day to the proceedings I had two questions pertaining to safety. The first one was; it was reported the narrowest part of the Douglas channel was 1.4 kilometres. So I wanted to put it into prospective so I asked “Since the Suez Canal is the busiest water way in the world what was the narrowest part of the Suez Canal? The answer was 200 meters. So the fact is the narrowest part of the Douglas Channel is seven times wider than the narrowest part of the Suez Canal.
My second question, “Since I am a pipefitter, about the inspection of the welds on the pipe line and the piping at the dock.?” The answer was that for the pipeline, Enbridge does 100 per cent non destructive testing (NDT) on the pipe line welds.
But at the time they did not know what it would be for the dock, but they committed to getting that number to me at a later date.
Since safety is always my main and only priority we should encourage Enbridge to use 100 per cent (NDT) on the piping at the dock as well.
When I was at Eurocan safety was my only priority which often made me unpopular with management. Being on the environmental committee did not help much either.
But I learned that companies that had good safety records normally had good environmental records as well and vice versa because a focus on preventing accidents in both areas was the same procedure.
In conclusion if Enbridge is to go ahead we need to make sure the strictest safety and environmental standards as well as the strictest safety and environmental responses are employed.
Peter G. King,
Kitimat BC
