BC | Northwest Coast Energy News

Hundreds protest in Victoria to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline and to protect “Mother Earth”

Anti-Enbridge protest in Victoria, April 12, 2012 — Hundreds of protesters march down Douglas Street in Victoria, BC, Sunday, April 12, 2012. The Day of Action Against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, also had a larger aim, organizers said, to protect Mother Earth. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

About a thousand people gathered in front of the British Columbia legislature on Sunday, April 12, 2012, for the Day of Action Against the Northern Gateway pipeline. But unlike protests, marches and gatherings here in the northwest of British Columbia, which are often tightly focused on the controversial pipeline and the associated tanker traffic and the potential dangers to northwestern BC, the protests in Victoria had a wider focus. Speakers on the steps of the legislature spoke, not only of stopping the pipeline and protecting the coast against tanker spills, but also of protecting “Mother Earth” and the wider BC environment.

The speeches on the steps of the legislature began with a group of children from the Oak and Orca Bioregional School in Victoria, who spoke of their fears for the future of the planet.

Lisa MerCure, who spent years searching for First Nations roots, only to discover her Cree family lives in Fort Chipewyan in Northeastern Alberta and are suffering from cancer. She spoke of the dangers from the bitumen sands development, from the tailing ponds and the effluent in the Athabaska River.

Other First Nations speakers spoke of the dangers to the rivers and coast of northern BC.

The recent announcement that Kinder Morgan would greatly increase the capacity of its pipeline from Alberta to the Vancouver area added new impetus to the protest.

After the rally at the legislature, the protesters marched along Douglas Street to Centennial Park for an afternoon of workshops.

Slideshow “Our Coast Our Decision” Signs of Protest

Letting salmon escape from nets could benefit grizzly bears and even the fishers, study says

Grizzly eating a salmon — A grizzly bear eats a salmon. A new study says managers must consider the value of salmon to the entire ecosystem. (Jennifer Allan)

A new study suggests that the health of the grizzly bear population is also a strong indicator of the health of Pacific salmon—and perhaps surprisingly, allowing grizzlies to consume more salmon will, in the long term, lead to more, not less, salmon.

The study, led by Taal Levi, of the University of California at Santa Cruz and colleagues from Canada, suggests that allowing some more Pacific salmon to escape the nets of the fishing industry and thus spawn in coastal streams would not not only benefit the natural environment, including grizzly bears, but could also eventually lead to more salmon in the ocean. Thus there would be larger salmon harvests in the long term—a win-win for ecosystems and humans.

The article, “Using Grizzly Bears to Assess Harvest-Ecosystem Tradeoffs in Salmon Fisheries,” was published April 10 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology. In the study Levi and his co-authors investigate how increasing “escapement”—the number of salmon that escape fishing nets to enter streams and spawn—can improve the natural environment.

“Salmon are an essential resource that propagates through not only marine but also creek and terrestrial food webs,” said lead author Levi, an environmental studies Ph.D. candidate at UCSC, specializing in conservation biology and wildlife ecology.

Salmon fisheries in the northwest Pacific are generally well managed, Levi said. Managers determine how much salmon to allocate to spawning and how much to harvest. Fish are counted as they enter the coastal streams. However, there is concern that humans are harvesting too many salmon and leaving too little for the ecosystem. To assess this, the team focused on the relationship between grizzly bears and salmon. Taal and his colleagues first used data to find a relationship between how much salmon were available to eighteen grizzly bear populations, and what percentage of their diet was made up of salmon.

The study looked at Bristol Bay, Alaska, the Chilko and Quesnel regions of the Fraser River watershed and Rivers Inlet on the Inside Passage, just northeast of northern Vancouver Island.
The study says adult wild salmon are “critical” to ocean, river and terrestrial ecosystems. As well as humans, salmon are eaten by orcas, salmon sharks, pinnipeds (seals and sea lions). On land, salmon are eaten by black and grizzly bears, eagles and ravens.

Because the grizzly is the “terminal predator” the study says “if there are enough salmon to sustain healthy bear densities, we reason there should be sufficient salmon numbers to sustain populations of earlier salmon-life history predatory such as seabirds, pinnipeds and sharks.”
As is well known in the northwest, the study says “bears are dominant species mediating the flow of salmon-derived nutrients from the ocean to the terrestrial ecosystem. After capturing salmon in estuaries and streams grizzly bears typically move to land to consume each fish, distributing carcass remains to vertebrate and invertebrate scavengers up to several hundred metres from waterways.”

“We asked, is it enough for the ecosystem? What would happen if you increase escapement—the number of fish being released? We found that in most cases, bears, fishers, and ecosystems would mutually benefit,” Levi said.

The problem, the study says, is that fisheries management have a narrow view of their role, what the study calls “single-species management,” concentrating on salmon and not the wider ecosystem. “Currently,” the study says, under single-species management, fisheries commonly intercept more than 50 per cent of in bound salmon that would otherwise be available to bears and the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems they support.”

The relationship between salmon and bears is basic, Levi said. “Bears are salmon-consuming machines. Give them more salmon and they will consume more—and importantly, they will occur at higher densities. So, letting more salmon spawn and be available to bears helps not only bears but also the ecosystems they nourish when they distribute the uneaten remains of salmon.”

When salmon are plentiful in coastal streams, bears won’t eat as much of an individual fish, preferring the nutrient-rich brains and eggs and casting aside the remainder to feed other animals and fertilize the land. In contrast, when salmon are scarce, bears eat more of a fish. Less discarded salmon enters the surrounding ecosystem to enrich downstream life, and a richer stream life means a better environment for salmon.

In four out of the six study systems, allowing more salmon to spawn will not only help bears and the terrestrial landscape but would also lead to more salmon in the ocean. More salmon in the ocean means larger harvests, which in turn benefits fishers. However, in two of the systems, helping bears would hurt fisheries. In these cases, the researchers estimated the potential financial cost—they looked at two salmon runs on the Fraser River, B.C., and predicted an economic cost of about $500,000 to $700,000 annually. This cost to the human economy could help support locally threatened grizzly bear populations, they argue.

While these fisheries are certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the researchers suggest that the MSC principle that fisheries have minimal ecosystem impact might not be satisfied if the fishery is contributing to grizzly bear conservation problems.
The researchers believe the same analysis can be used to evaluate fisheries around the world and help managers make more informed decisions to balance economic and ecological outcomes.

What do grizzlies eat in northwestern BC ?

The current study and previous studies track the grizzly’s diet by studying the nitrogen and carbon istopes in grizzly hair. In one study in the early part of this decade, the BC Ministry of the Environment used guard hairs from “passive hair snags” as well as samples from bears killed by hunters or conservation officers.

The 2005 study says “Guard hairs are grown between late spring and fall, thus integrating the diet over much of the active season of temperate-dwelling bears.” Analysis of the isotopes can show what the bears ate over the season.

The study identified four elements in the grizzly diet across British Columbia, Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories: plants, “marine-derived nutrients” mostly salmon, meat (primarily from ungulates such as moose) and in inland areas, kockanee salmon.

As could be expected, grizzly salmon consumption is highest in coastal areas. Males generally consume more salmon than females, likely because a mother grizzly may avoid taking salmon if there is danger to the cubs from males. The further inland a grizzly is found, salmon is a lesser factor in the bear’s diet. In Arctic regions, grizzlies can feed on arctic char, whales, seals and barren-ground caribou.

So what do local grizzlies eat? (excerpts from the 2005 study, Major components of grizzly bear diet across North America, National Research Council Research Press published March 28, 2006)

Map of grizzly diet and salmon — Grizzly consumption of salmon on the northwest coast (NRC)

North Coast 54.54 N 128.90 W (north and west of Kitimat)
Plants 33 per cent Salmon 67 per cent

Mid Coast 52.50 N 127.40 W (between Bella Bella and Ocean Falls)
Plants 58 per cent Salmon 42 per cent

Upper Skeena Nass 56.80 N 128.80 W
Plants 71 per cent Salmon 5 per cent Meat 13 per cent

Bulkley Lakes 54.10 N 127.10 W
Plants 63 per cent Salmon 6 per cent Meat 16 per cent Kokanee 15 per cent

Cranberry 55.40 N 128.40 W (near Kiwancool)

Plants 30 per cent Salmon 17 per cent Meat 40 per cent Kokanee 13 per cent

Khutzeymateen 54.68 N 129.86 W (near Prince Rupert)
Plants 22 per cent salmon 78 per cent

###

Other authors of the 2010 study are Chris Darimont, UCSC, Misty MacDuffee Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Denny Island, BC; Marc Mangel, Paul Paquet, UCSC and University of Calgary, Christopher Wilmers, USCC
Funding: This work was funded by an NSF GRF and Cota-Robles Fellowship (TL), a NSERC IRDF (CTD), the Wilburforce and McLean Foundations, and Patagonia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

2005 study by Garth Mowat Aurora Research Crescent Valley BC and Douglas Heard BC Ministry of the Environment, Nelson

Editorial: Pipeline politics are now hyperlocal. Government and energy companies must deal with it.

There’s a glaring misconception in the move by Stephen Harper’s government in Thursday’s budget to speed up the review of resource projects, including the Northern Gateway Pipeline. The government wants reviews to last between 12 and 24 months and to avoid duplication between the federal and provincial governments. The buzzword is “one project, one review.”

The misconception is that natural resource reviews can go on as they have since the 1980s when the deregulation craze made any kind of resource hearing, especially those before the National Energy Board, into a private club for the oil patch, government and energy lawyers. NEB hearings are plagued by arcane rules of procedure and evidence that were, probably in an “out of mind out of sight” way, created to exclude the public. The public, despite the consultation mandates of the review agencies, didn’t really matter a damn. It is likely with the changes brought in by the Harper government, with its vocal hostility to the environmental, the public will matter even less.

A second misconception promoted by the government, by right-wing think tanks and supported by a lot of the media is that the Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel has been sort of hijacked by the green movement with sole purpose of delay, delay, delay.

The problem is that none of these people, not Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, not the Prime Minister, not the columnists, nor academics for universities or think tanks have attended many (or any) of the hearings or read the transcripts. They don’t look at the lists of intervenors, those who have said they want the opportunity for a 10 minute comment or filed letters of comments.

What has changed in just the last five years or so, just as Northern Gateway was getting underway, was the rise of social media, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. The widespread use of social media means that despite the efforts of Stephen Harper to stifle opposition, pipeline hearings now and in the future will be governed by —let’s call it the “British Columbia Spring.” If the hearings are curtailed by the government, social media isn’t going away and those opposed to the pipeline will simply find ways to escalate their protests.

It’s not green manipulation that is delaying the hearings, it is that pipeline hearings have become “hyperlocal”* as social media makes everyone aware of what’s going on. That means that each neighbourhood, each village, each block, each wharf now know how a pipeline will affect their lives. This applies to the First Nations across the pipeline route and down the coast; anyone who drives BC’s highways and sees avalanche gates and avalanche warnings; commercial salmon, halibut and herring fishers; the ailing forestry industry. It’s not just BC, it’s a farmer in Nebraska, a rancher in Texas, a homeowner in Michigan, a shrimp fisher in Louisiana. Their worries are available on Google, Facebook, Twitter in a way that wasn’t possible just a few years ago, when stories about NEB hearings were buried in small paragraphs on the back pages of the business section of a newspaper.

Although the right-wing media loves to concentrate on a couple of people from Brazil who may or may not have signed up inadvertently, the vast majority of the 4,000 people who are scheduled to speak before the Joint Review Panel are vitally concerned about strictly local issues. Scheduled to speak is now the operative term because it is likely that the Harper government will cut off the opportunity to speak, and that will only further decrease the already shaky credibility of the Joint Review Panel with the people of British Columbia directly affected by the Northern Gateway.

One of the most perceptive academics in the energy field, economist Andrew Leach (albeit based at the University of Alberta) led a discussion on Twitter opening it with this question

Can anyone provide a single piece of evidence that longer environmental processes, beyond a certain point, yield higher quality evaluation?

Again, no evidence of this beyond a certain pt. Long process often cited as evidence of sound analysis, but two are not same.

IMO, there’s no reason that, w proper resources, you could not fully assess impacts & set appropriate conditions for major projects in 2yrs.

Context: NGP JRP decision is expected now at the end of 2013, roughly 4 years after hearing order issued, but <2 yrs after first hearings.

Leach makes two shaky assumptions.

The first assumption is that the hearings can come up with a quality evaluation and sound analysis. But a quality evaluation, sound analysis for whom? For the private club that the NEB has been for the past quarter century? Sound analysis from a government that muzzles its own scientists and cuts funding for proper research and now wants to have the Canada Revenue Agency harass its environmental opponents? As the responses by First Nations and local groups to the filings by Enbridge show, counter analysis often takes years of research and lots of money. Sound analysis if the opponents are given limited opportunity to respond to a proposal?

The second assumption is that the current and future hearings are going to be fair, independent and transparent. In his conference call yesterday with local reporters, Skeena Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen said the Joint Review and future hearings are “rigged,” predicting that “people won’t stand for this” and it “will only hurt the company it’s supposed to protect.”

The panel has already heard a large number of intervenors in various communities across the northwest tell them directly that the process has no credibility. The decision by the Harper government to speed things can only increase the belief that the hearings are unfair, are rigged, that building the pipeline is a foregone conclusion.

Or quality evaluation for the people directly affected?

Testimony before the Joint Review Panel has been about hyperlocal issues, the state of an estuary, the legacy of the poisoning of a stream by now defunct paper mills, one aboriginal family’s traditional trapline, the shellfish beds polluted by the Queen of the North sinking, the danger to culturally modified trees, the fact that the pipeline will bring no more than a handful of jobs to British Columbia, while endangering thousands fishing and tourism jobs. You might want to call that “Not In My Back Yard” but then the Calgary water supply won’t be out of operation for four years as could happen in a worst case scenario for the Kitimat River in case of a pipeline breach along the river or its tributaries.

If the public believes that future hearings are not “quality evaluation” but rigged in favour of the energy industry, then there will be resistance there as well. What kind of resistance the decision will bring remains to be seen. But that resistance, whatever form it takes will likely also be a factor in any future resource hearings.

Then there is the question of jobs. There just aren’t going to be that many jobs in British Columbia from the Northern Gateway pipeline. First Nations communities, in the unlikely event they agreed to a pipeline, will see no long term benefit from temporary construction jobs. How many Canadian jobs will there be, if the rumours that been circulating in Kitimat for months now are true that PetroChina will build the pipeline? ( recently somewhat confirmed by the Financial Post, although also characterized by Enbridge as speculation)

Don Cayo, writing this morning in the Vancouver Sun says

But the biggest deal in the budget by far, at least as far as the West is concerned, has nothing to do with spending. It is the intention to clean up, at long last, the snarl of red tape that has become such an impediment to development in the resource sector….

it’s a spurious argument to try to link the efficiency of the regulatory process and the fairness of it. “Slow” is not a synonym for “good” nor is “faster” another word for “worse.” It does immense harm to the economy and no good to anyone at all, as history proves, to have a Byzantine process that is obscenely expensive for both the public and private sectors.

Nor is the pipeline the only project in need of fair and reasonably fast assessment. The West in general and B.C. in particular are awash in potential projects — mines, energy developments and more — and we’ll all be better off knowing sooner rather than later which ones are appropriate to move forward.

This simply shows that the advocates of the fast track process don’t get it. They are stuck in the small c conservative mantra of cutting “red tape.” There have been no recent changes in the red tape. The National Energy Board procedures, as I said, are already unfriendly to the ordinary public.

What has changed is that with the web, with social media, the people directly affected, who in the past would have been frozen out of the procedures by lack of communication, are now participating to the fullest extent possible, using information gleaned from the web and empowered by social networks. That isn’t going to change.

As much as the Conservative government believes it control the agenda, and the procedures of the resource hearings, it can’t. All it takes for a hearing to be overwhelmed is a lot of concerned residents, acting on their own, not pushed by ENGOs, prodded by a single e-mail, Tweet or Facebook post.

It may be that the energy industry, a decade from now, will regret what they wished for, a fast track process that is actually bogged down in all the kinds of court challenges that lawyers can work up, regional and municipal zoning barriers, sympathetic bureaucratic delays at the provincial level, civil disobedience, including blockades on land and sea bringing Canada a growing international media black eye, beyond the current impression of the bitumen sands as Mordor. As much as Harper may not like it, if an Oscar-winning star is arrested at a pipeline blockade it will be international news.

To use a a current analogy, with the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic approaching, the Steerage passengers are now demanding a place at the First Class table, along with the haughty oil barons, the high priced lawyers and holier than thou consultants. Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty may close some of the gates between Steerage and First Class, but eventually the Third Class passengers will find a way to the upper decks.

(Every time someone from Enbridge at a Kitimat meeting says how safe the oil tankers and their escorts will be, one audience member always brings up the Titanic in a question and answer session)

Notes

1. *What is hyperlocal?

Hyperlocal is usually a term in online journalism, referring to coverage of a specific neighbourhood. In some ways, Northwest Coast Energy News, based in Kitimat is a hyperlocal site. That is why it is easy to recognize the hyperlocal nature of those who testify at the Joint Review Hearings. It can be as hyper hyper local as the pipeline crossing a skiing/hiking trail.

For a longer, somewhat academic definition of hyperlocal, the Wikipedia entry may be valuable.

2. Scope creep and dismissing local concerns

In a paper for the conservative C. D. Howe Institute, Leach’s colleague Joseph Doucet, Interim Dean of the University of Alberta School of Business, UnClogging the Pipes; Pipeline Reviews and Energy Policy, complains about what he calls “scope creep” in NEB hearings and says:

It is not simply not efficient or effective to attempt to solve broad, far-reaching societal challenges such as First Nations land claims or greenhouse gas emissions policy through individual project reviews.

and concludes

Regulatory review should focus on relatively narrow project definitions consistent with the impacts of the project , including its relevant costs and benefits and the scope of the activity of the proponent, Other issues, broader and more general in nature should be dealt with in statue or in policy, not in regulatory review.

There is one thing missing in Doucet’s analysis. The “scope of activity” of people directly affected by a pipeline project. What he calls “scope creep” has occurred due to the rise of public awareness due to the web and social media. In his paper, the lives of the local residents and hyperlocal issues are simply written off.

Doucet ignores that fact this government’s policy, while spinning respect for the environmental issues in single paragraphs, is to bulldoze the pipeline across BC, no matter what the consequences. On one hand, the Harper government pushes the pipeline as a gateway to Asian markets. On the other hand, with the $80 million cut to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, with cuts to Environment Canada and support for independent environmental research, cuts to the Canadian Coast Guard, the policy is clear, the Harper government is ignoring the potential catastrophe from an oil pipeline breach or tanker disaster.

Enbridge Northern Gateway, on the other hand, does have contingency plans for such events, but at meetings in Kitimat, even Enbridge officials have expressed public scepticism about how much government support there could be in the event of a disaster. In fact, if the Harper government had more respect for the environment and actually had plans to counter a potential disaster, there likely would be less opposition to the Northern Gateway.

The only way to have any check and balance on the Harper bulldozer is to have an effective, thoroughly independent and wide ranging inquiry process, not a narrow one aimed at tweaking regulations.

Enbridge presents strong case for marine safety planning

Enbridge made its strongest public case yet Tuesday, March 13, that improvements in marine safety worldwide since the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, make the chances of an accident involving ships carrying bitumen and condensate in Douglas Channel and the BC Coast highly unlikely.

But one of Enbridge’s own invited experts somewhat undermined the case by pointing out that in the event of a major tanker incident (as unlikely as Enbridge believes it may be) the resources of the federal and provincial governments are spread far too thin to deal with a major disaster.

The Enbridge Community Advisory Board held a public meeting Tuesday at Mt. Elizabeth Theatre, with three guests presenting a case that they also gave to the regular meeting of the advisory board earlier in the day.

The three guests were Capt. Stephen Brown, of the BC Chamber of Shipping, Capt. Fred Denning, of British Columbia Coast Pilots and Norm Fallows, an emergency response officer with the BC Ministry of the Environment, based in Smithers.

There were only a few dozen people in the theatre for the presentation, compared the full house for last year’s community forum that was sponsored by the District of Kitimat. One reason may be that many Kitimat residents preferred being in the stands for the Coy Cup hockey championships at Tamitik Arena rather than sitting through yet another presentation on the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Denning opened the presentations by explaining the role of the BC Coast Pilots. The BC Coast Pilots is a private firm that contracts with government’s Pacific Pilotage Authority to provide pilots to ships plying the coast of British Columbia. By law all vessels larger than 350 gross registered tonnes are required to use a marine pilot.

Both in his presentation and in the question and answer period, Denning stressed that pilots are traditionally independent from government and industry, with the responsibility to ensure the safety of shipping.

In the question and answer period, when an audience member pointed out that under the Transport Canada TERMPOL process, use of tugs in Douglas Channel and use of tethered tugs was “voluntary,” Denning replied that the pilots would be insisting on tethered escort tugs for tankers on Douglas Channel.

He explained that BC pilots are highly experienced mariners, usually with 25 years or more experience on the coast, the majority of that time as a ship’s officer. An applicant to become a pilot is put on a waiting list, and if accepted, then is trained both on ships and simulators and serves a six to 12 month apprenticeship.

He said that BC coastal pilots have a 99.89 per cent incident safety record.

BC pilots now carry a large laptop called a Portable Pilot Unit, which operates independent of the ship’s navigation and computer systems gathering navigation and other data, as a redundant safety system.

Denning expects that marine traffic on the BC coast will continue to increase because the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert are the closest to Asia by the Great Circle routes. Both cargo and the energy projects, whether the Enbridge Northern Gateway or the the liquified natural gas terminals will mean more ships and more work for the pilots.

The pilots are always consulted in the development of any new traffic or terminal projects in BC. Including design, testing the ship’s courses in simulators, recommending new navigational aides and training for the pilots. Pilots were consulted during the development of Deltaport and Fairiew container terminals as well as the cruise ship terminals in Victoria, Nanaimo and Campbell River.

The pilots are being consulted on both the Enbridge and LNG projects at Kitimat as well as the proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan facility in Vancouver. For the existing Kinder Morgan terminal, pilots were involved in creating navigation aides and tug procedures for the Second Narrows.

Stephen Brown is a member of the Community Advisory Board as well as representing the Bureau of Shipping. He began with a detailed timeline of how shipping regulations have been tightened over the years since what is now the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, was founded in 1948. He said the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 triggered even tighter regulations, including the 1990 US Oil Pollution Act passed by Congress which required all ships have containment capability and a spill clean up plan. The act also ordered US shippers to phase out single hulled tankers beginning in 1995. In 1992, the IMO adopted a similar measure.
Since the 1990s, there have been new regulations preventing the dumping of ballast and creating higher standards for crew and officer training, including hours of work, watch keeping standards and environmental awareness.

Brown then went on to discuss shipping in narrow waterways which he said were similar to Douglas Channel, including the Straits of Dover between Britain and France, the Straits of Malacca between Singapore and Malaysia and the island of Sumatra, the Dardanelles and Bosporus Strait in Turkey (which traditionally are said to join Europe with Asia) and the Panama Canal. All those areas, he said, see heavy shipping traffic, including tankers, each year.

The narrowest passage is in the Bosporus, which is 698 metres wide, a little less than one half nautical mile.

Comparing the Bosporus with Douglas Channel, Brown said Douglas Channel is much wider, about three kilometres, meaning that inbound and outbound ships can pass a half kilometre apart.
He went over how tanker management has improved with double hulls and better overall construction standards,vetting of ships and crews, and creating “a culture of safety and respect for the environment.”

The final speaker Norm Fallows, from the BC Ministry of the Environment Emergency Management, outlined the current emergency response system in the province. Central to any response to a oil spill or any other hazard materials problem is the “incident command system.” also used most often for fighting forest fires. The incident command system ensures that all public agencies and the private sector are cooperating and coordinating with one overall person in charge.

The province has a “polluter pay” policy, Fallows said, meaning that the “responsible party” must pay for all the cost involved. Sometimes, int he case of a meth lab, it is the unfortunate owner of a house that may have been rented by drug dealers.

Fallows said he is one of only 10 emergency response officers stationed across the province of British Columbia, In contrast, the State of Washington, with a much smaller land area than BC, has 79.

Any response to a spill has to do the best possible in the situation, Fallows said. He gave the example of burning off an oil spill in some circumstances because that was both the most cost effective solution that at the same time in those circumstances did the least harm to the environment.

In the early part of the first decade, Fallows said, some staff at the environment department were proposing what was called “Geographic Response Planning,” which involved surveying an area for both potential hazards and solutions, and bringing in local responders including fire, police and local industry. Planning for the GRP program had minimal funding, which was later dropped by the province.

In contrast, Fallows said, the state of Washington has spent millions of dollars creating a geographic response program for that state.

In response to questions from the audience, Fallows said that adequate emergency response in British Columbia needed “more resources” from both the provincial and federal governments.

Pacific Trails Pipeline holds community meetings

Pacific Trails Pipeline meeting — Hatha Callis, left, of Progressive Ventures Construction, discusses contracting possibilities with the staff of the Pacific Trails Pipeline at a community meeting in Terrace, BC, March 1, 2012 (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

Pacific Trails, which has proposed to build a natural gas pipeline from Summit Lake, near Prince George, to Kitimat, held four community meetings in Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, Houston and Terrace, to discuss changes to a plan for the pipeline that was approved the BC Environmental Assessment Office in 2008.

Paul Wyke, a spokesman for Apache Corp., one of the main investors in the Kitimat LNG project as well as the Pacific Trails Pipeline, said the companies considered the meetings successful. About a dozen people showed up in Vanderhoof and Burns Lake and about 25 to 30 in Terrace and Houston, perhaps an indication of the lack of controversy, so far, for the PTP, which will follow roughly the same route as the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. Apache and Pacific Trails also took part in a job fair on February 10 in Burns Lake, the town hard hit when a huge explosion flattened the Babine Forest Products sawmill on January 20, killing two, injuring 19 and left about 250 workers jobless.

About half the people showing up at the meetings were interested in job or contracting opportunities while the rest were concerned about environmental issues.

Nathan Hagan-Braun, project assessment manager for the BC Environmental Assessment Office, who also attended the community meetings, said that a decision on approval of the amendments to the PTP plans will likely come in May.

PTP says that once the project adjustments are approved, logging and clearing is scheduled for the summer of 2012, pipeline construction in 2013 and 2014, with the pipeline going into operation in 2015.

Joint Review Panel issues venues, rules for oral statement phase of Gateway hearings

The Northern Gateway Joint Review panel has announced the venues and the rules for the oral statements phase of the pipeline hearings, tentatively scheduled to begin in November 2012.

Procedural Directive #5 defines what is an oral statement. Those rules appear to be somewhat looser than the continuing controversy over the current “community hearings” where intervenors are permitted to talk about traditional or personal knowledge, but not allowed to make any technical or legal arguments on the pipeline project itself. Panel chair Sheila Leggett has to keep telling the intervenors that those arguments will be heard during the final argument phase, tentatively scheduled for April 2013. The panel has also scheduled a “questioning phase” in September and October 2012, where “where the applicant, intervenors, government participants and the Panel will question those who have presented oral or written evidence. ”

The oral statements must still be based “on personal knowledge.” That means, the panel directive says, unlike presentations by intervenors, visual aids, including electronic presentations such as PowerPoint, will not be permitted.

The communities so far chosen to hear oral statements are

Bella Bella, BC
Hartley Bay, BC
Prince Rupert, BC
Bella Coola, BC
Hazelton, BC
Skidegate, BC
Burns Lake, BC
Kelowna, BC
Smithers, BC
Calgary, AB
Kitamaat Village, BC
Terrace, BC
Comox, BC
Klemtu, BC
Vancouver, BC
Edmonton, AB
Old Massett, BC
Victoria, BC
Fort St. James, BC
Port Hardy, BC
Grande Prairie, AB
Prince George, BC

The JPR defines oral statements this way:

An oral statement is an opportunity for registered participants to provide their personal knowledge, views and concerns regarding the proposed Project to the Panel in their own words during the community hearings. Oral statements are brief and limited to a maximum of 10 minutes. Your oral statement should describe the nature of your interest in the application and provide any relevant information that explains or supports your statement.

People who registered by the Oct. 6. 2011 and who are not intervenors may make an oral statement. They are required to make the statement themselves and cannot be represented. No “walk-ins’ will be permitted.

Like the presentations by intervenors, the witnesses will be under oath. No questions will be permitted except questions of clarification from the panel itself.

Panel-Commission Procedural Direction 5 Community Hearings for Oral Statements (pdf)

Smithers council votes to oppose Northern Gateway, fourth council within a month

Smithers has become the third northwestern British Columbia municipal council to vote against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, joining Prince Rupert and Terrace. Earlier, one regional district, Skeena Queen Charlotte, also voted against the controversial pipeline and tanker project.

The vote in Smithers was 5-1.

Smithers Councillor Phil Brienesse, in a statement posted on his Facebook page, said

I brought forth a new motion to oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. The motion passed 5-1 after careful and considerable debate by council. My decision was based in part on new information that came out from recent decisions made in Terrace, SQCRD, and Prince Rupert that made it clear that local governments had the right and are clearly permitted to provide information to the Joint Review Panel. Since the previous motion was tabled with the reasoning being that it was felt we should not be influencing the JRP it seemed appropriate to bring forth a new motion at this time taking into consideration that we made the decision based on the information currently available.

Brienesse was quoted by CFJW on Tuesday night: “I hope this really brings our community together and in particular what it does, is it brings the north together so now we have Smithers, Terrace, Prince Rupert, and the Skeena Queen Charlotte Regional District all opposing Enbridge, in their own unique ways that makes sense to their community,” said Brienesse, adding “we have a united North, so I am very positive about this.”

CFJW said the only vote against the motion was from Councillor Charlie Northrup, who noted not all councillors were present for last night’s meeting — and he wanted to table it until everyone was there.

Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway, speaking on CBC Radio, repeated what he said to Northern View after the Prince Rupert vote, that it was better for all communities to wait until the Joint Review Panel had finished the hearings and then make a decision based on all the evidence.

Prince Rupert council votes unanimously to oppose Northern Gateway project

Prince Rupert council has joined Terrace and the Skeena Queen Charlotte Regional District in voting to oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project and associated tanker traffic on the west coast.

The Prince Rupert Council vote was unanimous.

The council has adopted the same resolution that the Skeena Queen Charlotte Regional District (SQCRD) did over a week ago:

Therefore, be it resolved that the City of Prince Rupert be opposed to any expansion of bulk crude oil tanker traffic as well as bitumen export in Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound in British Columbia.

And be it further resolved that the City of Prince Rupert petition the federal government to establish a legislated ban on bulk crude oil tanker traffic and bitumen export through the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound in British Columbia.”

The council debate took place before a packed audience. Council decided to consider the matter after the Prince Rupert Environmental Society that asked the city council to adopt the resolution.

Like some other northern councils, including Kitimat, Prince Rupert had remained neutral on the controversial pipeline.

Councillor Jennifer Rice said it was time for the city to make its position clear. She said the Enbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review panel was asking northern municipalities for their opinion (although actually the opinion and argument phase of the JRP hearings won’t take place until the “final arguments” currently scheduled for sometime around April 2013).

Rice said Prince Rupert’s silence could have been taken as acceptance of the $5.5-billion proposal to pipe Alberta oil across B.C. to Kitimat, where supertankers would carry it to overseas customers.

Other members of council agreed with Rice, expressing concerns about damage that could be caused if a Very Large Crude Carrier (a supertanker) could get into trouble.

The mayor, Jack Mussallem, argued, as have others across the northwest, that council should wait until the Joint Review Panel concludes its hearings, when all appropriate information was available. He did not vote. (After the vote in Terrace, B.C. Energy Minister Rich Coleman said local representatives to follow the provincial government’s lead and remain neutral until a federal environmental review is complete.)

In response to the vote at Prince Rupert, Enbridge Northern Gateway spokesman, Paul Stanway issued a statement to the Northern View which reads.

Prince Rupert city council has expressed a position on the Northern Gateway project and that is their right. Surely the best time to make a decision in the public interest is when all the facts are known?

Northern Gateway is in the midst of an extensive federal review which will examine the project in detail and in public – as it should. We would hope that people will wait until they have an opportunity to hear the facts before making up their minds.

Most of the communities along the corridor have taken a neutral position until this regulatory review has been completed. This is fair to everyone, and it allows elected officials to get a full view of the project with all the facts having been aired through the review process – which then allows them to make an informed decision.

Numerous communities – in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba who have a history of working with Enbridge – have written letters of support for the project and filed them with the Joint Review Panel.

It is our view that the more people learn about the project, the more they tend to support Northern Gateway. A recent Ipsos Reid poll found that, among British Columbians, those in the North are the most familiar with the project, and they are also the most supportive.

(As Northwest Coast Energy News pointed out at the time, that poll had a large margin of error when it came to northern residents and it was unclear if the poll was weighted in favour of one northern region or another)

TERMPOL report on Enbridge marine operations sees “no regulatory concerns,” tankers could be “unassisted” by tugs

A report from TERMPOL for the the Joint Review Panel on Enbridge’s proposed marine operations for the Northern Gateway pipeline project, finds

While there will always be residual risk in any project, after reviewing the proponent’s studies and taking into account the proponent’s commitments, no regulatory concerns have been identified for the vessels, vessel operations, the proposed routes, navigability, other waterway users and the marine terminal operations associated with vessels supporting the Northern Gateway Project. Commitments by the proponent will help ensure safety is maintained at a level beyond the regulatory requirements.

Even though Enbridge has promised that tankers would have escort tugs, the report goes to so far as to suggest that super tankers could come and go along Douglas Channel “unassisted.”

TERMPOL has taken all the assurances from Enbridge at face value, including the use of escort tankers, and takes into consideration the company’s proposed “environmental limits (weather and sea conditions) on oil tanker navigation,” and “commitment to use industry best practices and standards.”

The report says:

The overall increase in marine traffic levels is not considered to be an issue for the shared safe use of the project’s preferred shipping routes. The proponent has also committed to including safe speeds for oil tankers and tugs in its terminal rules and requirements. It will also include safety limits for environmental and marine conditions for both vessels and terminal operations.

With the increase in shipping activity, there may be an increased threat to the well-being of marine mammal populations along the shipping route. To address this risk, the proponent has proposed measures to avoid contact with mammals. The proponent is encouraged to develop appropriate procedures to help minimize harmful effects on marine mammals.

Read the report: Transport Canada Process Report on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project (PDF)

In a news release, Enbridge welcomed the findings, quoting Janet Holder, Enbridge’s Executive Vice-President of Western Access and the senior executive with responsibility for Northern Gateway, as saying: “It is important for the public, particularly BC residents, to know that we’ve done our homework and that our marine plan has been thoroughly reviewed. I think the TERMPOL review underlines that what we are proposing is well planned and safe – and indeed would enhance safety for all shipping on BC’s north coast.”

The release says “Northern Gateway is encouraged by the positive conclusions of this technical review of the marine components of the project – including the safe operation of the Kitimat terminal and safe passage of tankers to and from the facility through Canadian waters.”

TERMPOL is an intergovernmental agency made up of officials from Transport Canada, Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, Canadian Coast Guard and the Pacific Pilotage Authority. It can make recommendations and compliance with the recommendations is “voluntary.” So far companies contemplating tanker operations along the northwest coast have agreed to follow the TERMPOL recommendations.

Marine safety simulator — A marine safety simulator (Enbridge Northern Gateway)

All of the conclusions depend on Enbridge’s commitment to implement and monitor practices for safer shipping for the Northern Gateway Project. “Tankers and shipping operations, like any other vessel operations, will have to comply fully with national and international regulatory frameworks. Through the proponent’s oil tanker vetting and acceptance process, ship operators will have to follow the proponent’s additional safety enhancements, which are designed to reduce the risks during operations.”

Termpol did note that with up “to 250 additional tankers per year arriving in Kitimat, there will be an impact on Transport Canada’s compliance monitoring programs.” This comes at a time the government of Stephen Harper is already drastically cutting the resources for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard on the west coast and is making across the board cutbacks at Environment Canada.

The simulations show that the largest proposed oil tankers are capable of safely navigating the entire proposed shipping route, unassisted. The route includes an S-curve where the channel widths are between 3,500 and 5,000 metres. Navigation simulations carried out by the proponent have demonstrated that a typical 320,000 tonne crude oil tanker loaded, or in ballast, can safely negotiate this area.
TERMPOL report

Based on reviews by the Canadian Coast Guard and computer simulations of bridge operations, the teports says the waterways comply with all Canadian and international regulations and says:

The proposed routes provide the required clearances for good vessel manoeuvrability and allowances for very large crude oil tankers to safely navigate…

The simulations showed that tankers of the largest design are capable of navigating the entire route un-assisted. This is also consistent with opinions of Pacific Pilotage Authority Canada and the British Columbia Coast Pilots. The British Columbia Coast Pilots identified some narrow sections of the waterways as warranting caution for two-way traffic. The Canadian Coast Guard identified that the Lewis Passage-Wright Sound area warrants caution as a result of multi-directional traffic. In practice, the British Columbia Coast Pilots, supported by information from Marine Communications and Traffic Services, would adjust a vessel’s speed to avoid meeting other vessels in these areas. Transit speeds may also have to be adjusted to take into account traffic in the Wright Sound area.

TERMPOL says the “proposed shipping routes are appropriate for the oil tankers that will be used at the proposed terminal,” largely because Douglas Channel is so deep.

The next sentence says “there are no charted obstructions that would pose a safety hazard to fully loaded oil tankers,” which was pretty well known by people who sail Douglas Channel.

Testimony at the Joint Review hearings in Kitimat, presentations to District of Kitimat council and the history of the region, as related by both aboriginal and non-aboriginal sailors, show that there are concerns about dangerous storms, general heavy weather, tricky winds off the mountains and currents from the rivers meeting the ocean.

The report also says the Canadian Hydrographic Service is in the process of updating several charts of the area to ensure the most accurate information is available for safe navigation.

The report does acknowledge that there could be a tanker collision in certain areas of the British Columbia coast, saying: “The narrower passages along the North and South routes, each with charted depths of 36 m (20 fathoms) or more are all wide enough for two-way navigation by the largest design vessel,” but adds that while “the proposed channels meet the specified requirements for two-way marine traffic, the BC pilots “may choose to ensure that passing and overtaking situations do not occur in the narrowest sections, by good traffic management.”

It says that in certain areas “that the meeting of two large ships …. should, in general, be avoided, particularly during severe (wind 30 knots or above) weather conditions. The reason for this restriction is that the margins for safe navigation are limited in case of an emergency situation where the engine is lost or the rudder is locked at an angle different from ‘mid ship’.”

According to the pilots, the meeting of ships at these locations can easily be avoided through oroper planning and pilot to pilot communication and available navigation and ship tracking data.

It adds, as Enbridge has proposed, “In order to mitigate risk, all laden tankers will have a tethered escort tug throughout the Confined Channel sections (from Browning Entrance or Caamaño Sound to the Kitimat Terminal).

The report adds:

It is important to keep in mind that the emergency situations described rarely occur, but that it is necessary for the Pilots and Tug Masters to rehearse these situations on a regular basis in order to be prepared in case an incident actually occurs.

Related TERMPOL

More pipeline debate coming to the Northwest: Changes to the Pacific Trails natural gas Pipeline

Pacific Trail Pipelines map — The Pacific Trails Pipeline map as of Feb. 2012. (PTP/BCEAO)

Another pipeline debate is about to open in the northwest. This time for changes to the Pacific Trails (natural gas) Pipeline, that will run from Summit Lake, just outside Prince George, to Kitimat.

Public information meetings will be held in Terrace, Houston, Burns Lake and Vanderhoof in the next couple of weeks.

The PTP runs entirely within British Columbia, and so comes under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Assessment Office of British Columbia. The application to build the PTP was filed in 2005 and approved in 2008 which means the process for the amendments will go much faster than the current Northern Gateway Joint Review hearings for the Enbridge twin bitumen/condenseate pipeline which are expected to last at least another eighteen months.

Pacific Trails is asking to

Change the location of the compressor station;
Establish two new temporary stockpile sites;
Make pipeline route modifications

The period for commenting on the Pacific Trails Pipeline amendments opens on February 27 and closes March 28. The public meeting on the changes to the compressor station were held in Summit Lake last September.

The documents filed with the BCEAO say that Pacific Trails Pipelines is in ongoing negotiations with First Nations where the PTP will cross their traditional territory.

The natural gas project has general support in northwestern BC, and the relations between First Nations and PTP, and Apache, the main backer of the Kitimat LNG project are much better than those with Enbridge. (The PTP would supply the liquified natural gas terminals in Kitimat)

Significantly, the documents show that the PTP is trying to enter separate negotiations with the Wet’suwet’en houses that are now objecting to the pipeline route through their traditional territory.

The filing says:

In addition, PTP is now consulting, or making all reasonable efforts to consult, with one of the 13 Wet’suwet’en Houses as a discrete entity. PTP was informed in February 2011 that Chief Knedebeas’s House, the Dark House, was no longer part of the Office of the Wet’suwet’en although the latter still maintains responsibility for the welfare of all Wet’suwet’en lands and resources. Consultation that took place prior to this year with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en included consultation with the Dark House. PTP has been diligent in seeking to consult with the Dark House since April 2011. The spokesperson for Chief Knedebeas of the Dark House, Freda Huson, states that she also represents a group called Unist’ot’en.

But it’s Enbridge that is the sticking point, and could bring controversy to this amendment request. The Wet’suwet’en houses that blockaded a PTP survey crew last fall said they were worried that the Northern Gateway pipeline follows roughly the same route as the PTP. The PTP application was filed and approved long before the controversy over the Enbridge Northern Gateway began to heat up.

One reason is that original approval was for a pipeline to import natural gas before the shale gas boom changed the energy industry. As PTP says in the application to change the compressor station.

When the original purpose of the PTP Project was to transport natural gas from an LNG import facility at Kitimat to the Spectra Energy Transmission pipeline facilities at Summit Lake, the design called for the installation of a mid-point compressor station to enable the required throughput of natural gas. This compressor station was sited at the hydraulic mid-point of the pipeline. The location of the compressor station in 2007 was south of Burns Lake and just east of Highway 35.

Now that the PTP Project is designed to move natural gas from Summit Lake to Kitimat, or east to west, a compressor station is required at Summit Lake rather than at the hydraulic mid-point of the pipeline. The new Summit Lake compressor station is required in order to increase the pressure of the natural gas from where it is sourced at the Spectra Energy Transmission pipeline facilities.

The EAO will hold open house meetings on the pipeline route changes from 4 pm to 8 pm at each location at

Monday, February 27, 2012
Nechako Senior Friendship Centre, 219
Victoria Street East
Vanderhoof, BC

Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Island Gospel Gymnasium
810 Highway #35
Burns Lake, BC

Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Houston Senior Centre
3250 – 14th Street W
Houston, BC

Thursday, March 1, 2012
Best Western Plus Terrace Inn
4553 Greig Avenue
Terrace, BC

The EAO says: Displays containing information on the proposed amendments will be available for public viewing. The EAO will be available to answer questions on the amendment process. The Proponent will be available to answer questions on the Project and proposed amendments.

The documents show there are route changes to the pipeline route along the Kitimat River, but those are considered “minor route adjustments” so no meetings are planned for Kitimat.

Documents

PTP meeting schedule

Complete filing documents from PTP are available on the BCEAO site here.

Pacific Trails Pipeline