Editor:
Re: “Money may flow through Enbridge pipeline,” published in the Lakes District News edition of Sept. 14, 2011.
It appears the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako is being teased with a potential $1.3 million in annual taxes.
That’s about $39 million over the pipelines’ 30 years of use. In the same time period, Canada is promised a potential total of $2.6 billion, less than $87 million per year to all jurisdictions.
Enbridge’s annual report shows that in 2010 it spent $550 million for the cleanup done that year to mitigate their spill into the Kalamazoo watershed.
The September 2010, Romeoville, Illinois spill, a mere 6,000 barrels, cost another $45 million in the same period. Neither cleanup is finished.
So, a partial cleanup of these 2 spills costs roughly the same as 6 years and 10 months of taxes which might be paid to all jurisdictions in Canada.
This does not address the real financial losses to the local and regional economies after a spill. Nor does it address health consequences or social, cultural and environmental losses.
Enbridge’s own reports show 713 spills, large enough to be reportable by law from 1999 to 2009. That’s a spill every 5 days.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has shown that Enbridge’s newest ‘state of the art’ pipelines transporting dilbit [diluted bitumen] in Alberta are failing at 16 times the rate of older conventional crude pipes.
The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline here would push more than 177 barrels of dilbit per minute.
And we’re being asked to believe that this makes good economic sense.
John Phair
Lakes District Clean Waters Coalition
