Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, to ship crude from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia, received approval from the National Energy Board today, on 157 conditions, including 49 environmental requirements.
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We have been involved in the reviews for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, Enbridge’s Line 9 reversal, and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, and we plan to participate in the review for TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline.
It’s rare that the NEB will reject a project – more often they are approved with conditions, but the board has pushed back against the perception that it’s a rubber-stamp mechanism to approve pipelines in Canada.
In 2014 anti-pipeline protesters set up camp on Burnaby Mountain in an effort to block Kinder Morgan from doing survey work along a proposed route for the pipeline expansion.
Environmentalists, on the other hand, are urging the federal government not to approve the pipeline.
“The National Energy Board costs a lot of money [and] we don’t know how much this new transitory panel is going to cost, but it’ll be in the millions of dollars”.
The City of Vancouver, the City of Burnaby and the provincial government have opposed the project.
The federal government recently announced that a three-person panel, including former Tsawwassen Chief Kim Baird, will review Kinder Morgan’s proposal. For example, Kinder Morgan must file details of quake analysis prior to construction and must report to the board on its consultation with indigenous groups during construction and through the first five years of operations. Its members have voiced concerns about the risk both of an oil spill in B.C. and about the carbon emissions associated both with the production of the oil flowing through the pipeline and with the burning of the fuel at its end source.
“The U.S. Tribes urge the NEB panel to recommend rejection of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline application”, said comments submitted by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes, the Suquamish Tribe and the Lummi Nation.
The NEB decision was welcomed by business groups such as the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, but criticized by environmental groups such as the Wilderness Committee. That increase would mean a spike in oil tanker traffic in Vancouver’s waters.
But ultimately the board concluded the risks were outweighed by the economic benefits, including increased access to diverse markets for Canadian oil, thousands of construction jobs, hundreds of long-term jobs and considerable government revenues. The project has drawn strong resistance in the Lower Mainland, but significant support in the B.C. Interior. The Westridge Marine Terminal beside Burrard Inlet off Burnaby would also be expanded. “Communities clearly do not grant permission to Kinder Morgan, so permits can not be granted by the government”.
“When the Conservatives forced through omnibus bill C-38 in 2012, they gutted the Environmental Assessment Act and forced pipeline assessment authority on the NEB. It’s laughable that the National Energy Board would say there is an economic benefit to Vancouver”, he said.
Canadian officials will have seven months to make a final decision on the project.
BC Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver says in a statement he’s not surprised, suggesting the approval process appeared rigged from the start.
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These half measures and unanswered questions are particularly disturbing when you consider that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers swept into office with bold promises to take action on climate change and restore faith in Canada’s battered environmental assessment process.
