Kinder Morgan wants to triple the capacity of its existing Trans Mountain pipeline, which carries diluted bitumen from oilsands near Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., for export.
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If approved, a twinned pipeline would be created that would increase capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day.
The panel may have ruled the Trans Mountain expansion a benefit for the national interest, but these opponents are not interested in the nation, or in the panel’s opinion.
Kinder Morgan must also assess firefighting resources that would respond to its Burnaby terminal or tank farm and consult with affected municipalities. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation aboriginal community, whose traditional lands are crossed by Trans Mountain, is also against the expansion.
The BC government is also planning its own review, and now says it’s opposed to the project as is.
It obtained federal approval in 2014 but has since been mired in legal uncertainty.
“We see this as window dressing on a recommendation that is effectively a rubber stamp”, says Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.
The route of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline linking Alberta to Vancouver on the Pacific Coast. The project has become more urgent after U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline past year.
“Canada is balancing the need for much stronger action on climate change with the need to pay for that action, by sustainably developing our natural resources – including our energy resources”, McCuaig-Boyd said in a release.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in the months ahead to prove our case, to make sure that Ottawa hears the voices from the West Coast that are so concerned about our waters, about our environment, about our economy and livelihood and quality of life here”, he said.
The B.C. Supreme Court found in January the provincial government could not rely exclusively on the energy board’s review of Northern Gateway.
“We are facing the very real threat of an oil spill that puts the Salish Sea at risk”, said Mel Sheldon, chairman of the Tulalip Tribes. For the first time, Kinder Morgan has to buy carbon offsets during construction, it said.
The NEB is requiring Kinder Morgan to file an updated greenhouse gas assessment two months after the pipeline is built.
“I totally have 100-per-cent faith that we will continue to have veto power over projects like this”.
Kinder Morgan has remained confident that it has been adequately addressing First Nation concerns, noting in its final arguments to the NEB that it has support from 30 First Nations in British Columbia and Alberta.
Coastal communities in B.C. have raised serious concerns about spill risk and the potential damage that would have on the environment.
The report also says that future vessel traffic would contribute to an increase in Canadian greenhouse gas emissions.
The NEB review panel found the $6.8-billion project is in the national interest, unlikely to cause significant adverse environmental effects, and its benefits outweigh any “residual burdens”.
But the board concluded the project presents significant benefits to Canada, including increased access to diverse markets for Canadian oil, thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of long-term jobs, development opportunities for indigenous and local communities and considerable government revenues.
The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade said it applauded the board’s decision.
“We hope that at the end of the day these projects will be evaluated on their merit and not their emotion”, she said.
The provincial Liberal government must now conduct its own environmental assessment review, and Ms. Polak could not say if it would be complete before the next B.C. election.
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Carr says the panel can not override the energy board’s decision, but will add a further layer of consultation, particularly with indigenous communities, in case issues were overlooked by the board.
