letter of comment - NEB - Northern Gateway Project
Aug 31 deadline for public letters of comment to the National Energy Board on the Northern Gateway (pipeline & tanker) project.
http://gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca/clf-nsi/prtcptngprcss/lttrfcmmnt...
Here's mine:
Hundreds of thousands of people and communities in B.C. depend on clean, healthy ecosystems for their personal health and livelihoods. Short-term financial gain of private corporations cannot make up for what the public stands to lose if we don’t protect the natural world that sustains us. You are in a unique position to help or hurt current and future generations of Canadians and the whole planet.
The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project is a FUTURE DISASTER for Canada - but especially for BC's coast. There is NO DOUBT that an oil spill will occur because up to 500 oil tankers a year laden with toxic heavy crude will have to weave through the 4th most dangerous waterway in the world, making sharp, 90° turns through twisting, rocky passages.[i] Similar to the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, this entire channel, the islets, and the coastline hundreds of miles away will be impacted for decades – or even centuries once a spill occurs.[ii] Furthermore, these tankers are reported by the company to carry up to 2 million barrels of oil, 8 times what was spilled in Alaska.
On March 24, 1989 the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling an estimated 11 million gallons of heavy crude oil from Alaska’s North Slope, which spread as a surface slick in this sub-arctic region. As tidal currents and 50 mile-per-hour storm winds washed ashore much of the oil, clean-up of the shoreline became the primary focus.[iii]
Not only is BC’s coast and all our fisheries, shellfish, and tourism industries dependent on a clean, unpolluted ocean and shoreline, First Nations who depend on the remaining wild fish on the coast for their livelihood will be culturally and economically impacted if a spill occurs. This “impact” is beyond mitigation – both for the people whose livelihoods will be destroyed and for those whose ability to harvest food will be lost. The entire coast’s natural areas, with its migrating birds, fish, marine mammals and plankton cannot be put at risk – a known risk that is beyond reasonable considering the above information.
Furthermore, Enbridge has just received a terrible report from the US government [iv] after its lax response to two recent spills as a result of pipeline corrosion and failure. Enbridge is reputed to have caused 800 spills in the last decade.[v] Pipelines will corrode overtime. Furthermore, the pipelines are passing through the habitats of some of BC’s most ecologically important areas – headwaters of major rivers, and the recently protected Great Bear Rainforest. The risk of spills and environmental contamination is far too likely, especially with a company that is already known to be irresponsible in its responses.
And who will pay to clean up? The companies could not post a bond (which would need to be in the trillions) to clean up. There is no real cleaning of oily shorelines and the then polluted ocean, plankton and shellfish that we need to take up carbon to mitigate today’s biggest environmental challenge of climate change.
The third problem is in fact the increase in carbon that this project would emit. Not only does it involve an increase in production of the very petrochemicals that are causing climate change, added to this is the development of the infrastructure to build the pipeline and the pipes, the loss of habitat where they will be placed (with the loss of carbon released when the trees/grasslands are cut) but also the increased use of petrochemicals to transport this oil and bitumen that at this point in time from the Tarsands is a very heavy type of carbon emitting petrochemicals, that should be left in the ground.
The construction of drilling facilities fragments public lands, displacing wildlife and destroying habitat, while oil spills, fires and other pollution can contaminate surface and ground water. Roads built for drilling increase human activity in formerly undisturbed areas and can lead to increased poaching, litter, roadkill and human-caused fires; and they facilitate the spread of exotic species that replace native flora and fauna. Most acutely, oil and gas development perpetuates our dependence on fossil fuels, committing the people and their public lands to more greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.[vi]
Its time to support energy alternatives - through wind, solar, and water generation - that does not destroy the natural capital that is the basis of our wealth and future generation’s survival. It is our moral imperative to protect and steward the earth for other creatures and future generations – rather than continue down the road of destroying habitats, clean water, clean air, and people’s homes and livelihoods for a few who are stuck in the old energy pathway or have personal gain in mind.
Please follow the example of other countries that are leading the way to ending humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels. Reject the Enbridge Northern Gateway project and turn our country toward cleaner, safer, renewable energy.
Thank you for your kind attention..
Sheila Harrington, BFA, MEd,
Founding E.D. (past) – BC’s Land Trust Alliance
CC: Ms. Clark, Mr. Kent and Mr. Oliver, Mr Lunney
kenneth [dot] macdonald [at] enbridge [dot] com
abby [dot] dorval [at] enbridge [dot] com
richard [dot] neufeld [at] fmc-law [dot] com
Endno
[i] http://www.livingoceans.org/maps/tankers/proposed-tanker-routes-through-inside-passage-kitimat?page=1
Enbridge deleted 1,000km² of BC's islands off of its public videos and maps to convince the public its pipeline and oil tanker plan is less treacherous than it really is. http://sumofus.org/campaigns/enbridge/?sub=leadnow0812
[ii] Twenty years after the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound, oil persists in the region and, in some places, "is nearly as toxic as it was the first few weeks after the spill," according to the council overseeing restoration efforts. "This Exxon Valdez oil is decreasing at a rate of 0-4 percent per year," the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council stated in a report marking Tuesday's 20th anniversary of the worst oil spill in U.S. waters. "At this rate, the remaining oil will take decades and possibly centuries to disappear entirely."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29838444/ns/us_news-environment/t/oil-plague...
[iii] http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/08/18/two-worst-oils-spills/ Lessons Learned from the Two Worst Oils Spills in U.S. History New Report from Berkeley Lab and University of Louisville Scientists Shows Critical Role of Microbes
AUGUST 18, 2011
[iv] July 10, 2012, was the release of the findings of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Accident Report: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/372499-kalamazoo-ntsb-report-004...
[v] [2] Report slams Enbridge Energy's history of oil spills (Detroit Free Press)
http://www.freep.com/article/20120723/NEWS06/120723045/National-Wildlife-Federation-report-Enbridge-Energy-oil-spills [3] Questions over Enbridge’s Kalamazoo spill dog pipeline proposal (Edmonton Journal)
NY Times, August 17th, 2012: The damage may be particularly acute when oil gets into coastal areas, particularly marshlands, coves or other places where the oil is protected from the wind and wave action that causes it to disintegrate. Such was the case in many parts of Prince William Sound in Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez spilled more than 10 million gallons of oil after running aground in 1989, in what had been the worst spill in American waters until the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/08/18/two-worst-oils-spills/
[2] Report slams Enbridge Energy's history of oil spills (Detroit Free Press)
[3] Questions over Enbridge’s Kalamazoo spill dog pipeline proposal (Edmonton Journal)
[5] Enbridge’s misleading videos:
http://www.northerngateway.ca/project-details/route-safety/
http://www.northerngateway.ca/project-details/route-video/
[6] Misleading map: http://imgur.com/v13U6
Comments
Here's mine
Thanks Sheila! Here's what I submitted:
Panel members,
I am a resident of the coastal waters of British Columbia. My great-grandparents came to Vancouver Island over 100 years ago, and my family has lived in and around these coastal waters since. We have made our living from the bounty of the natural environment here as farmers, fishers, and foresters.
Since 1972 there has been an informal moratorium on large tanker traffic through the North Coast Straits and Sounds. Every commissioned study to look at this moratorium since then has concluded that indeed these waters are unsuitable for large tanker traffic and that the risk of spills and the difficulty and cost of clean-up is too high.
The people of BC, and particularly coastal residents and First Nations, have strongly supported this informal moratorium for 40 years now. There is simply too much at risk and we, the residents of this place, are not willing to accept that risk.
I have many thoughts about the pipeline itself and the poor record of Enbridge in managing its pipeline facilities to avoid spills. But I am no expert on pipelines and so will leave comments directly related to the pipeline itself to others.
However, the Northern Gateway pipeline is of no use or value without large tanker traffic to move the product out through Douglas Channel, Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, and Dixon Entrance. Given the number of credible studies that have concluded these waters are unsuitable for large tanker traffic, the strong support, over 40 years, for
the moratorium on tanker traffic by BC residents, and now the almost unprecedented opposition to lifting that moratorium for this project, I fail to see how any democratic, representative agency could allow tanker traffic in these waters.
Without the large tanker traffic, the pipeline is of little or no economic value. For this reason alone, I would urge you to reject the proposal as infeasible.
I thank you for the opportunity to comment.
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