The northern bitumen pipeline wars could be about to begin all over again

Documents obtained by CBC News   in the story Alberta considering 3 oil pipeline routes through northern B.C., the documents show show Alberta’s proposed pipeline routes through northern British Columbia.

The pipelines would reach ports on the coast, including Prince Rupert and farther north at Nasoga Gulf in Nsga’a traditional territory and Observatory Inlet, just off the Portland Canal. The map also includes Kitimat. In January, Alberta Premier Daneille Smith had previously ruled out Kitimat. Or at least she said so at the time.

Nasoga Gulf is the site of the Ksi Lisims LNG project that just signed a deal to sell liquefied natural gas to Germany. Kitimat is the site of LNG Canada, the proposed LNG Canada Phase Two and the Haisla Nation Cedar LNG project which is under construction.

(Today The construction group Fluor Joint Venture Receives Limited Notice to Proceed for Proposed Phase 2 Expansion of LNG Canada Facility  )

So, is there room for a bitumen terminal at any of the sites?

There is a lot to consider.  One item stood out, that is a route along the narrow strip of land along the Skeena River to Prince Rupert.

The maps are preliminary. Alberta wants to submit its proposal to the Major Projects Office by July 1. There is no private sector proponent.

All the northern routes will cross highly hazardous mountain territory, prone to landslides, floods and earthquakes. All these hazards were hotly debated during the Northern Gateway hearings more than a decade ago.

What the map calls the “blue” northern route would follow the same plan as the Northern Gateway and then splits in two to connect with Kitimat and Prince Rupert. That means the blue route to Prince Rupert would split somewhere around Terrace and then continue along the Skeena River.

Alberta has failed to learn from history and now is doomed to repeat history. The planners in the halls of the Alberta government are doing the same thing they did a decade ago, drawing lines on their mapping software without any idea that they are doing.

The idea of the Prince Rupert Skeena pipeline was repeated time and time again by Alberta officials and by Albertans on social media most of whom repeatedly said they knew more about British Columbia than the people who lived in British Columbia. That was even though even Enbridge and Northern Gateway had rejected the route. So why is this completely impractical route being reconsidered?

Are the planners that blind or is it a political ploy so that a Skeena Route can be thrown out in favour of another route?

This  article is what today I would call for Premier Danielle Smith, and Alberta’s Minister of Energy and Minerals  Brian Jean, Skeena for Dummies 2.0.

Here is a summary of what wrote back in October 2014.

In most cases, the idea of the pipeline to Prince Rupert is always proposed by Albertans, not from any credible source in British Columbia, or the suggestions come from desk bound analysts in Toronto and Ottawa both in think tanks and in the newsrooms of dying newspapers who have never seen the Skeena River apart from a tiny handful who have looked at Google Street View

You can read the complete story at Sending the Northern Gateway Pipeline to Prince Rupert: A dumb, dumb, dumb idea—and here are the photos to prove it.

The Skeena is one of the greatest salmon rivers on the planet and a bitumen pipeline would not just endanger but devastate the salmon run and it could reach an extinction level event.
There isn't any room for the pipeline corridor right-of-way. Enbridge, in its original submissions to the Joint Review Panel, said it requires a 25-metre wide right of way for the pipeline corridor. (For the record that's just over 82 feet).

Along that highway there's barely enough room for the CN mainline and Highway 16 (also known as the Yellowhead Highway).

I decided that only way to prove to people sitting in Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray playing with Google Maps that the pipeline to Prince Rupert was a dumb idea was to shoot photographs to show just why the Northern Gateway will never go to Prince Rupert—at least along the Skeena.

As you drive out of Terrace, you pass two large swing gates The swing gates are avalanche gates and, in the winter, Highway 16 can be shut down if an avalanche closes the highway or the danger from avalanche is too great to allow motorists to proceed. When you drive the highway from Terrace to Prince Rupert in the winter you are warned “Avalanche danger Next 13 kilometres. No stopping.”

Once you come to down from the mountains you drive along a narrow winding highway for kilometre after kilometre beside the CN rail tracks often bounded by concrete barricades, the CN rail line and then the towering mountains. Much of that area was originally built by CN or its predecessor The Grand Trunk Railway so that the railway roadbed was built on fill along the side of a cliff. Now the highway takes up the rest of the bank. The opposite bank of the Skeena was considered a century ago and is considered now too rugged for construction. There is a cliff, a railway and a highway, so where are the 25 metres needed for a pipeline?

This is a time of political turmoil, with the October Alberta referendum on a possible referendum on separation and Prime Minister Mark Carney sidelining and downplaying environmental concerns. One thing is clear dumb ideas are not going to promote national unity or promote a viable future economy for Canadians.