BC | Northwest Coast Energy News

BC approves Pacific Trails Pipeline amendments

: A couple from Vancouver, who refused to give their names, unfurl an anti-Pacific Trails Pipeline banner at the British Columbia legislature in Victoria, Sunday, April 15, 2012. The man said he against all pipelines and that he was supporting the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. About 1,000 people marched through downtown Victoria to oppose the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and coastal tanker traffic. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

The BC Environmental Assessment Office has approved an application to increase the capacity of the proposed 463 kilometre Pacific Trails Pipeline from the Summit Creek natural gas hub near Prince George to Kitimat.

The $1 billion pipeline project is crucial to the success of the KM LNG liquified natural gas export terminal at Kitimat, a partnership of Apache Corp., Ecana and EOG Resources.

The main thrust of the application was to increase the capacity of the pipeline to 1066.8 mm (42 inch) from the originally proposed 914 mm (36 inch). Pacific Trails will change the location of pump stations since the original proposal was for an import pipeline while now it is for export. There are also minor changes.

The proposal was generally considered pro forma since the main environmental review was completed under the original application approval in 2008 and the BC government was only considering the changes proposed by PTP.

The government report says officials were convinced that Pacific Trails would be able to handle problems with increased traffic and any potential risk involved in drilling under watercourses.

The Haisla submitted a number of technical questions about the impact of the larger pipes. While the BC Assessment office noted in its report that the Pacific Trails Pipeline is generally outside Haisla traditional territory, it is clear from the documentation that one of the Haisla concerns are any impacts on the Kitimat River watershed, as the questions concern the Stuart and Endako Rivers, the Morice and Gosnell Creeks and Weedene and Little Wedeene Rivers. The EAO ruled that the Haisla questions were outside the scope of the amendment or should be addressed in the “permitting process.”

Some Wet’suwet’en houses have been vocal in their opposition to the Pacific Trails Pipeline crossing their traditional territory, The Office of the Wet’suwet’en filed a strong objection to certain parts of the plan.

Given that the Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver and the federal government are now working to fast tracking all major resource projects, a comment from David de Wit, Wet’suwet’en natural resources manager is significant:

Fast tracking projects may result in overlooking important details [that] can have detrimental consequences. It is important to point out that the diligence required post-certification to ensure that impacts and effects on important resources are prevented or avoided is not satisfactory. This leaves the burden and legacy of any impacts to be borne by the Wet’suwet’en.

The letter goes on

We have invested considerable time and resources in the BC EAO review only to find that the level of detail required pre-certification leaves far too many unanswered questions critical for ensuring environmental effects and identification of potential infringements to our Title and associated rights from the project are avoided or minimized.

The EAO responded by saying the issues were covered by the original assessment and through the Oil and Gas Commission permit process. The letter from the Wet’suwet’en was, however, passed on to the Executive Director for further consideration

The Pacific Trials Pipeline, also known as the the Summit-to Kitimat pipeline will supply the Kitimat LNG project, a venture of the KM LNG partners, Apache Corp., Encana Corp., Apache Canada and EOG Resources. The $4.5-billion LNG terminal and facility will likely be operational by 2015, depending on how long it takes for the partners to line up Asian buyers.

Documents

BC Environmental Assessment office ruling on Pacific Trails Pipeline (pdf)

Wet’suwet’en submission to the BC EAO (pdf)

Apache posts job for Kitimat LNG construction manager

The Apache Corporation website has a posting for a construction manager for the Kitimat LNG project.

The posting says the job will initially based in Houston, Texas, with the manager coming to Kitimat sometime in the future.

The posting calls for the manager to provide an overall construction plan, co-ordinate and control the construction project from inception to completion aimed at meeting the Project’s requirements in order to produce a functionally and financially viable safe project that will be completed on time within the authorized budget and to the required quality standards.

Some of the job requirements give hints of the project to come:

Previous LNG Project experience including construction
Experience of modular and stick built construction
Working knowledge of safety system and management to maintain world class safety performance
Working knowledge environment system and management to maintain world class environmental performance
Knowledge of logistics in remote sites
Knowledge of heavy haul and lift works
Proven ability with advanced project management principles
Proven ability with people management
Experience in Canadian labor law and have deep experience working with unionized labor
Experience in working through cold weather climates

The site also has a posting for a Contracts and Procurement Manager.

Both postings expire on May 2, 2012.

Although Apache and its partners, Encana and EOG Resources now say that they have postponed the final go-ahead decision on the KM LNG project until the fourth quarter of 2012, as negotiations continue with Asian natural gas customers, the postings are indication that the project is progressing.

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

Nuxalk First Nation withdraws as Joint Review intervenor, Heiltsuk hearings end with more controversy

The Nuxalk First Nation at Bella Coola has withdrawn from the Enbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review process. Both the hereditary chiefs and elders and the elected council say the federal government “has already predetermined its approval of the project.”

A release from the Nuxalk says their withdrawal “withdrawal is another sign that the federal government is mishandling its relationship with First Nations, including its statements last week that it will change the rules for the Enbridge pipeline hearings retroactively, which is unfair and will likely further compromise the regulatory review.”

“There is no honour in the federal Crown’s approach to consulting with First Nations on the Enbridge project,” says Andrew Andy, the elected Chief of the Nuxalk Nation. “Recent statements make it clear that the Prime Minister has already decided to approve the super-tanker project that would violate First Nations’ Title and Rights and put our coastal waters at risk of a major oil spill.”

The Nuxalk support the decision of other Nations to oppose the process through the Joint Review Panel, but say the review is not being done in good faith and has been undermined by repeated and controversial public statements by the Prime Minister and Natural Resources Minister that suggest a predetermined approval.

“Despite our serious concern about this process, including the lack of any decision-making role for First Nations, we entered the process in good faith,” says Andy. “The government’s disrespectful behaviour these past months makes clear that our good faith is not being returned.”

“How can we participate in a process driven by a government that has labelled us ‘socially dysfunctional’?” says Charlie Nelson, a Hereditary Chief of the Nuxalk Nation, referring to recent controversial statements by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver. “Where is the honour in the Crown stating that it’s prepared to violate our constitutionally-protected Title and Rights before the work of gathering information on the scope of infringement is even done?”

The Nuxalk say the Joint Review Panel has no mandate to consult with First Nations, and there has been no clarity provided by the federal government about how it will consult on issues that fall outside of the Joint Review Panel process.

Meanwhile, hearings in Bella Bella ended on Thursday afternoon, with more controversy as they did at when they opened late on Tuesday. Hearings were delayed after a peaceful community demonstration Sunday against the proposed Enbridge project with drumming and singing at the airport. That delay cut one and half days from the hearings and as they ended today, numerous tweets from Bella Bella described how the Joint Review Panel told the Heiltsuk Chief Counsellor Marilyn Slett to “move on” after which some audience members walked out in protest. Later tweets said that a number of speakers were not able to testify and those tweets called that “shameful.” The tweets say that demonstrators followed Joint Review Panel and staff as they left for the Bella Bella airport.

Alberta Oil magazine describes Kitimat LNG projects as high stakes poker

It looks like the Chinese curse (and journalist’s blessing) “May you live in interesting times,” has come to Kitimat, especially when it comes to selling LNG to Asia.

In the past months the world liquified natural gas market has become more volatile with increased competition across the globe and, in some cases, political factors adding to the molecule mix.

In the past few days, Alberta Oil magazine has published a series of articles on the Kitimat LNG projects, describing the projects as a high stakes poker game.

The point is that the potential Asian buyers for BC (and US) liquified natural gas want a secure supply and they’re not sure what is going on on this side of the Pacific.

That’s apparently why the first project, KM LNG, has put off the final go ahead project from the first quarter of 2012, as originally expected, to the now likely the fourth quarter of 2012.

That has left a lot of uncertainty in town, despite assurances from two of the KM LNG partners, Apache Corporation and EOG Resources that they are optimistic that there will be a deal with Asian gas buyers, even if it means Asian equity in the KM LNG project.

That uncertainty in Kitimat has led to widespread rumours, none substantiated, that the three proposed projects, by KM LNG, by the Houston-Haisla BC LNG partnership and Shell, may be consolidated in one way or another.

At Kitimat council on Monday, April 2, Mayor Joanne Monaghan said “There has been a rumour around recently that Apache is stopping their working for a year and I talked to the CEO, Tim Wall, yesterday and he assured me that that was not true.”

Work is continuing on the KM LNG site at Bish Cove.

This morning, April 5, 2012, Alberta Oil reported that EOG Resources boss still bullish on Kitimat LNG, quoting a company called Bernstein Research that met with EOG’s top executive, CEO Mark Papa, who told Bernstein that EOG considers its 30 per cent holding in KM LNG as a “core holding.”

In a Thursday research note, Bernstein’s Bob Brackett says EOG is willing to sell some of its stake in the Kitimat project to a buyer (likely of the Asian persuasion) looking for equity in the upstream portion of project. “EOG expects to dilute a portion of its stake for that purpose,” Brackett writes.

A day earlier, Alberta Oil reported in Global LNG players jockey for space on a crowded field noting that Australia’s LNG megaprojects are facing competition from North America and cost inflation as the number of projects increase. At the same, US LNG projects are trapped in the current mire of US politics, with many politicians wary of the energy-starved US exporting natural gas.

In Apache Canada makes global push amid fierce competition, the article that uses the poker analogy, the magazine quotes Asish Mohanty, senior research analyst, global LNG, with Wood Mackenzie

Kitimat is due to start pumping out five million tonnes of LNG by 2015, widely viewed as a market “sweet spot” because it beats a number of major Australian projects – among them Shell’s massive Prelude endeavor – into production. “It’s a bit of a race,” Mohanty at Wood Mackenzie says. “The general impression in the industry is that before these Australasian projects start up it’s going to be a sellers’ market.”

Mohanty also looks at the problem of cost inflation and limited resources, a problem Kitimat already faces with not only the three proposed LNG projects but RTA’s Kitimat Modernization Project.

Companies that specialize in engineering, procurement and construction of liquefaction facilities number fewer than 10 internationally, Mohanty says. He expects many of them will be kept busy by construction of several LNG projects underway in northwest Australia, including ongoing work at the massive Gorgon plant at Barrow Island. The Chevron-led venture is due to begin pumping out 15 million tonnes of LNG annually by 2014-15. “All of these are massive projects,” the analyst says. “What that means is order books are pretty full. There is a scarcity of resources in places like Australia right now.”

The shortfall could potentially squeeze Canadian LNG forays. “The fact that most of the B.C. facilities are going to be ‘green-field’ will not make it easy for them to meet a timeline compared to a lot of others.”

Related CBC News Mackenzie Valley pipeline funding reduced

Kitimat council calls on Joint Review Panel, Enbridge to ensure viability of town water supply

District of Kitimat council votes on JRP motion — District of Kitimat Council votes unanimously Apr. 2 to inform the Joint Review Panel about concerns about the town's water supply. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

District of Kitimat council voted on Monday, April 2, to ask the Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel to ensure that the town’s water supply is protected if the controversial pipeline is built. A second motion called on Enbridge to give the district a detailed and public presentation on its provisions to protect the water supply in the case of a pipeline breach along the Kitimat River.

That second motion was passed after a motion from Councillor Phil Germuth holding Enbridge responsible for any disruption to the water supply was defeated by a vote of 4-3. However, council’s new motion did not preclude Germuth asking Enbridge his original questions about liability.

Germuth had presented council with the two original motions, after a presentation in March
by Douglas Channel Watch about the dangers avalanches could present to the Enbridge twin pipelines along the Kitimat River watershed.

The first motion called on the District of Kitimat to present a written position to the Joint Review Panel based on the district’s status as a government participant emphasizing the potential dangers to the water supply and noting that the mayor and council are “legally responsible to make every effort to ensure the city of Kitimat’s water supply is uninterrupted and of the highest quality.”

Councillor Phil Germuth (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

After introducing the motion, Germuth said he believed the motion went along with council’s position to remain neutral because nothing in the motion took a position for or against the project.
Councillor Mario Feldhoff said he supported the motion without supporting all the details of Germuth’s full statement, a indication of the more intense debate to come over the second motion.

Mary Murphy also supported the motion, pointing to the potential problems of “transporting hydrocarbons” by both tanker and pipeline.

Mayor Joanne Monaghan said she had a problem with the motion because had earlier passed a motion saying it would wait to take a position until after the Joint Review Panel had reported.

Councillor Corinne Scott said she would speak for the motion, agreeing that this was a request for information and not saying council was for or against the project, adding “we are all concerned about the potential of what could happen to our water supply.”

Read Councillor Phil Germuth’s motions (pdf)

Feldhoff agreed that a letter to the JRP was not taking a position, adding, that on receipt of a letter the Joint Review Panel should take a very serious look at the issue of the water supply of Kitimat. Monaghan agreed but said if the council was to write the letter that it be accurate.

Feldhoff then proposed a friendly amendment calling on District staff to write a draft letter to the Joint Review Panel that council could then examine and agree to.

With the amendment, the motion passed unanimously.

Germuth’s second motion was more contentious, calling on Enbridge to provide detailed plans for ensuring the quality of water for the District of Kitimat and accepting “full liability” for the restoration of the Kitimat’s “entire water system” in case of a pipeline breach. Although some councilors had reservations about Germuth’s list of items, they agreed that Enbridge be called to meet council “face to face,” as Monaghan put it, by responding in person rather than by letter.

Enbridge had already responded to the motion from the previous meeting, calling on it to respond to the concerns raised by Douglas Channel Watch about the possibility of avalanche danger in the Nimbus Mountain area.

In an e-mail to council, Michele Perrett of Enbridge maintained that most of the issue had been addressed by Enbridge in either its original filing with the Joint Review Panel or by subsequent responses to information requests to the JRP, adding

Specifically we have filed geotechnical studies and responded to information requests that include information on avalanches, rock fall, glaciomarine clay slides, debris flows and avulsion in the Kitimat area and have reviewed information filed on this subject by intervenors.

The e-mail said that Drum Cavers, a geotechnical specialist would be making a presentation to council on Monday, April 16.

Enbridge e-mail to District of Kitimat Council (pdf)

Monaghan noted that Douglas Channel Watch and other groups are limited by council policy to 10 minutes and that Murray Minchin had told council that to be fair, Enbridge’s response should also be limited to 10 minutes. Council agreed that the 10 minute limit is needed to make sure that council meetings finish on time and there was some discussion of allowing Enbridge to make a more lengthy presentation outside of a regular council meeting. That would allow Enbridge to not only respond to the earlier concerns about the Nimbus Mountain avalanche danger but also to the concerns about the town’s water supply.

Some members of council, led by Feldhoff, also expressed reservations about the seven points raised by Germuth; others wanted to possibly add their own concerns to any questions for Enbridge. Feldhoff was not prepared to vote for the original motion without more information.

Feldhoff then asked that the district administration prepare a report on the water supply, saying “I think the concerns may be somewhat overstated at the moment.” Councillor Rob Goffinet also called for a report from district staff on the “ramifications for our water supply,” adding that council should not “engage with Enbridge” until that report was ready.

Germuth’s motion, with all of the original questions, along with the invitation for Enbridge to make a public presentation, was then defeated by a vote of 4-3.

Councillor Scott then moved as part of the presentation that Enbridge was earlier invited to present that water issues be added to the list and that council draft a list of questions for the company, that could include Germuth’s original questions.

Germuth asked if the council could put a time limit on Enbridge’s response because the federal budget calls for limiting to the Joint Review Panel. Feldhoff responded that the new motion concerned council’s concerns just with Enbridge and that council should be respectful of Enbridge and hopefully the company could integrate those questions as well.

Goffinet said he wanted Enbridge to know all of the district’s concerns and so, in effect, this motion would get what Councillor Germuth wanted but by a different route, adding that if Cavers, Enbridge’s geotechnical expert, was unable to answer the question, Enbridge would be asked to return and answer the questions at a later date at a public meeting.

That motion passed unanimously.

Update:

Mary Murphy clarified her remarks in an e-mail by saying

I stated I had concerns with all hydro carbons transported along the river coastline…like CN Rail and transporting hydro carbons and the likelihood of a derailment etc, andhow that would also effect our waters. CN Rail is and has been transporting hydro carbons, etc for some time, and have had severe derailments.

JRP hearings to resume in Bella Bella Tuesday, Heiltsuk group says

A notice posted on the Heiltsuk Oppose Heiltsuk Oppose Oil Pipelines and Super Oil Tankers Facebook page says the Joint Review Hearings will resume at Bella Bella on Tuesday.

The notice, posted about 4 p.m. Pacific says

As you may have already heard, the JRP has since cancelled our first day of hearings that were supposed to start today, Monday, April 2nd, 2012, due to reason unknown!

We have since received notice that the hearings will commence at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012. However, we are not sure whether or not the time will be made up to allow all our Heiltsuk Warriors (Witnesses) to present their evidence. Stay tuned for more details!

The Joint Review hearings were cancelled for Monday due to security concerns after the panel members and staff were met by protoestors at Bella Bella airport on Sunday.

Members of the Joint Review Panel met with Heiltsuk elders and leaders during the day to come to an agreement for resumption of the hearings.

So far there has been no confirmation of the resumption of hearings from the Joint Review staff.

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 calls National Post story on PetroChina building Northern Gateway “speculation”

Updated

Enbridge late Wednesday, March 28, 2012, issued a statement saying that a story in the National Post/Financial Post that PetroChina could bid to build the Northern Gateway pipeline is “speculation.”

In PetroChina bids to help build $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline columnist Claudia Cattaneo reported that:

Chinese investment in Canada’s energy sector could move to a new level if PetroChina wins a bid to build the controversial Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline.

The largest of China’s three state-controlled oil companies has expressed an interest in building the $5.5-billion project across the northern Canadian Rockies and is considering purchasing an equity stake, said Pat Daniel, president and CEO of proponent Enbridge Inc.

“They have made the point to us that they are very qualified in building pipelines, and we will take that into consideration when we are looking for contractors,” Mr. Daniel said in an interview. “It’s an open bid process. They are a very big organization, they build a lot of pipelines, and they would love to be involved from what they have told me.”

Within hours, Enbridge Northern Gateway issued its own statement:

To speculate at this time about who might be contracted to build a project that has yet to receive regulatory approval is premature in the extreme.

Construction of Northern Gateway would be through an open bid process, and to be successful any bid would have to meet Enbridge’s stringent requirements and meet all federal and provincial employment standards. Enbridge is firmly committed to hiring as many local people as possible to build and operate Northern Gateway and is not anticipating bringing in overseas workers to construct or operate the project.

“British Columbians and Albertans deserve to know that providing local employment is a top priority for Enbridge Northern Gateway,” said Janet Holder, Executive Vice-President of Western Access and the senior executive in charge of the pipeline project. “Ensuring a local workforce is skilled and work-ready in order to fully participate in, and benefit from, the economic benefits associated with the project is a priority for Northern Gateway.”

The Financial Post report says the Chinese company stands a good chance of presenting a competitive bid, but it is likely that Chinese construction of a major Canadian energy project would increase anxiety among Canadians already worried about China’s expanding ownership of Canadian resources.

While there is a labour shortage in the energy sector at the moment, the Financial Post says Canada could use could use a hand from an experienced Chinese oil company, but turning over construction to PetroChina could mean fewer construction jobs in B.C., “where Northern Gateway is a hard sell because of perceptions the province would bear all the risk of a spill, while the rewards would go primarily to Alberta’s oil sands sector.”

The Enbridge statement also says:

Northern Gateway will shape its hiring and procurement policies so that contractors and sub-contractors working on the pipeline and the proposed marine terminal maximize local hiring and training opportunities, particularly for Aboriginal people – who are expected to comprise approximately 15% of regional construction employment.

An education and training fund of $1.5 million has recently been developed by Northern Gateway. The fund will support flexible community based training associated with the pipeline construction.