Kitimat | Northwest Coast Energy News

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

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

Wildrose tweet brings anti-Kitimat “birther” argument to Alberta election

In an example of how nasty American politics is infecting the Alberta provincial election, an anonymous Twitter account that apparently promotes the Wildrose party has brought the American “birther” argument into the campaign.

The badly written, poorly spelled,Tweet showed up on this morning’s Kitimat Twitter search feed. It implies that Alison Redford will not be a good premier for the province because she was born in Kitimat.

While the @wild_rose_MLA account, at this point, has only 20 followers and 20 following, it seems to be adopting the right-wing argument from the United States that President Barack Obama is not eligible to president because, despite conclusive proof that he was born in Hawaii, Obama the “birthers” believe he wasn’t born in the US.

Earlier there was a nasty incident in the election campaign. The controversy began when Amanda Wilkie, an assistant to the executive-director of Premier Redford’s Calgary office, Tweeted about Wildrose leader Danielle Smith:

“If @ElectDanielle likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own?”

The following day, Smith issued a statement. “In the last day the question has been raised about why I don’t have children,” and then told how Danielle Smithand her husband David had wanted children, had tried fertility treatments, but were unsuccessful. Wilkie later resigned from Smith’s office.

The irony, of course,is that in her role as premier of Alberta and as a prime promoter of the bitumen sands and the Northern Gateway and other pipelines, Redford has shown no indication that a Kitimat point of view actually has any influence on her policies and platform. Her family left Kitimat when she was a toddler.

This Twitter account is likely the efforts one highly-partisan individual who favours Wildrose, or, because it is so strident, perhaps even a disinformation campaign by an opponent. One reader has suggested it is a parody account.

On a wider picture, however, this tweet is typical of the thousands of tweets seen over the past couple of years that shows a general ignorance about Kitimat, if not outright contempt, that seems to prevalent in Alberta political circles. For those Albertans, Kitimat is simply the predestined outlet for the bitumen sands and nothing more.

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.

Conservatives to limit time for environmental reviews, including Northern Gateway

The Conservative government is taking aim at environmental reviews of major resource projects and will impose time limits on those reviews from 12 to 24 months.

In a briefing in the Ottawa budget lockup, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said, “The new timelines will apply to the Northern Gateway Pipeline.”

Currently, major resource projects can take as long six years to approve. Under the new rules the whole process will take no more than 24 months. Rosemary Barton of CBC said on air that the Gateway project will be now limited to 18 months, but there were no details when the 18 month limit actually starts.

Skeena Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen called the new limits “a rubber stamp that is not good for business or the environment,” noting that one major oil spill would wipe out any savings for government and industry for decades.

Cullen said limiting the Northern Gateway Joint Review proceedings “changes the rules of the game and opens it up to court proceedings. I’ve never heard of a government changing everything half way through. They’re rigging the entire process and they’re not ashamed of it.”

The changes to environmental assessment are, at the moment, expected to be part of the budget omnibus bill. Cullen said the Opposition will try to “hive it off” in the committee stage into a stand alone bill. He was not optimistic and noted that using budget riders to get unpopular measures into law was a common Republican tactic in the United States.

“The cost of approving bad projects is going to cost us multiple times more,” Cullen said. “For example, we used to approve projects with hardly any review at all and we are still paying about 170 million dollars in Yukon for bad mines that were approved without anybody doing any science. The idea that you can short cut this things and it won’t cost in the end, is insanity.”

Cullen pointed to $80 million in cuts to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, will cut the already under resourced DFO monitoring of the fisheries, at the time that the Harper government is accelerating the Northern Gateway project. While the Canadian Coast Guard will get $5.2 billion over 11 years, Cullen noted that this money will go for new ships and there are unlikely to be any increases in the operational budget.

There appear to be no changes in the budget to the habitat provisions of the Fisheries Act, unless it is buried in the fine print. In his interview with the CBC, Flaherty called some provisions of the Fisheries Act aimed at preserving habitat as “ridiculous,” repeating the story about a flooded farmer’s field in Saskatchewan.

Flaherty said “It’s anticipated there will be $500 billion investment in mining and oil, minerals in the next ten years. That’s an incredible opportunity. We can blow it, but that would be ridiculous. one study, one project, one review. ”

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers welcomed the government move to speed up environmental reviews saying:

[T]he plan to improve Canada’s regulatory process for natural resource projects will generate more jobs and a stronger Canadian economy while ensuring continued environmental performance, Canada’s upstream oil and natural gas producers said today.

“Broad-based regulatory reform is fundamental to attracting investment that creates Canadian jobs, prosperity and economic growth,” said Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers President Dave Collyer. “The government’s plan will improve the timeliness and efficiency of the decision-making process while the regulatory scrutiny that Canadians expect remains intact…”

The upstream petroleum industry is the largest single private sector investor in Canada – investing over $50 billion each year and employing more than 500,000 Canadians. Regulatory bottlenecks in the current system have often led to project delays or outright cancellations due to missed market opportunities, with a resultant reduction in economic benefits that would flow from these delayed or foregone investments.

“The changes broadly outlined in the federal budget will improve our business climate and competitiveness without compromising our commitment to responsible, sustainable development,” Collyer said.

The environmental movement was quick to disagree. The BC based Wilderness Committee said in a release

Corporations and polluters could reap the rewards of today’s federal Budget and the follow-up legislation, which will weaken the environmental assessment process.
The Budget includes major cuts to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and eliminates the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

The changes to the environmental assessment process explicitly aim to help speed up approval of tar sands pipelines like the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. This will put the Canadian people at increased risk of oil spills, polluted rivers and fish kills, as well as lost wildlife.

“Energy giant Kinder Morgan had said they would formally submit their application to the National Energy Board to twin their tar sands pipeline by the end of this month, but now they’ve delayed,” said Ben West, the Wilderness Committee’s Healthy Communities Campaigner. “It seems to me that Kinder Morgan could be waiting to take advantage of a weakened review process,” said West.

The West Coast Environmental law group which has opposed the Northern Gateway pipeline said in an e-mail to the media

Today’s budget announcements make it clear that long-standing legal protections for the environment, including environmental reviews of major industrial projects like mines and oil pipelines will soon be rolled back or eliminated.

For decades, Canadians have depended on the federal government to safeguard our families and nature from pollution, toxic contamination and other environmental problems through a safety net of environmental laws. Today?s budget would cut up this environmental safety net to serve the interests of a few big companies.

Canadians want strong environmental laws to protect our communities, ecosystems, health, and economy. Recklessly rushing approvals for major industrial projects like pipelines is not the same as building a sustainable economy. A robust, sustainable economy depends on a healthy environment. The multi-billion dollar clean up costs from the Exxon Valdez and the Gulf oil spill remind us that it is citizens who pay the price when things go wrong.

John Bennett, Executive Director of the Sierra Club Canada said:

“Environmental assessments need to be thorough, consultative and science-based. Creating hard-time limits and rushing the process compromises all these things.”

The changes will result in weaker environmental assessments and projects being approved without a full understanding of the social, economic and environmental impacts they will have.

“We have environmental assessment laws to prevent repeating the mistakes of the past. It is far better to identify problems and then improve a design than to breathe polluted air or clean up dead fish,” said Mr. Bennett.

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.

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.

Kitimat Modernization will create competitive contractors for future energy projects: RTA CEO

Jacynthe Côté, CEO Rio Tinto Alcan — Jacynthe Côté,the CEO of Rio Tinto Alcan, briefs reporters on the progress of the Kitimat Modernization Project,March 8, 2011(Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

The Kitimat Modernization Project, the $3.3 billion upgrade of the Kitimat aluminum smelter will create capable and competitive contractors that can go on to work at the future energy developments in the region, Rio Tinto Alcan CEO Jacynthe Côté said Thursday, March 8.

Côté was in Kitimat to tour the region, a trip that was postponed in December, at the time of the “Notice to Proceed” on the modernization project, when her aircraft was diverted to Prince Rupert by a snow and sleet storm the day of the announcement.

During a dinner on Wednesday night, Côté met with leading contractors, the leaders of the Haisla First Nation, Mayor Joanne Monaghan and members of the District of Kitimat Council.

The prospect of future energy projects, three liquified natural gas terminals to be built by the KM LNG partners, by the BC LNG partnership and by Shell was one factor in Rio Tinto Alcan giving the go ahead for the modernization project, she told local reporters.

“We have seen the critical mass in other parts of the world, “she said. “One of the reason to do full speed in December was to aim that we will be ramping down as the others are ramping up. Of course, I cannot say for the other projects that will be their decision.” Given the current schedules, she said, “we should be out of the way when others pick up.” (Another key reason for the go ahead, according to RTA primary metal vice president Jean Simon, speaking at the launch last December was the growing market for aluminum in Asia)

Côté added that the contractors now have “great abilities that could be redeployed.”

Michel Lamarre, Director of KMP said that despite some delays due to the harsh winter, RTA is still aiming for first concrete at the new potlines on June 1. First new metal is scheduled for the second quarter of 2014. Peak employment, about 2,500 people, is expected to be in the first quarter of 2013.

“We have the ambition to make the project a real showcase, for us, for British Columbia, for Canada,” Côté said. “So we’re pretty proud that 62 per cent of the work done so far has been done by the community in the area., 95 per cent of them in British Columbia, which is absolutely spectacular for a project of that complexity and magnitude.

“It requires a lot of skills, a lot of organization.”

Côté said she stressed RTA’s safety priorities when she met with the local contractors (a point the company made both at the Notice to Proceed gathering in December and at a local meeting for contractors last month). The contractors are very enthusiastic, Côté said. “I’ve seen in other regions as contractor and employees moved to that level of safety performance, it becomes a competitive edge, there’s going to be other projects coming in the region, there’s a lot of discussion around LNG, and it will be an advantage for contractors who have demonstrated superior performance and safety. We’re here to support that. I think they’re going to be more compelling and competitive, I mean it’s good business.”

She says that RTA is spending $3.1 million each day on the modernization project.

Asked about both the prospective LNG projects and the fact that accommodation in Kitimat is now at a premium, she said that “crowding” was a significant part of her discussions with both the Haisla and the District of Kitimat.

Rio Tinto has worked on what she called “disproportionately big” projects at sites compared to local communities around the world. “So we adjust, my message was we adjust.[There are] Different formulas in different parts of the world, depending on the conditions. The model is to bring in as many people from the community as we can.”

Strains from northwest boom brings expansion at Kitimat Terrace airport

A corporate jet over Terrace — A corporate jet on approach to Kitimat Terrace airport on July 19, 2011 (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)

The boom in construction in the Kitimat area, together with future energy projects, means Northwest Regional Kitimat Terrace Airport is straining beyond capacity, District of Kitimat Council was told at the regular meeting Monday, March 5, 2012.

The airport is looking for $966,000 for works alone to expand the current aprons at the terminal building. The airport is also looking for money to improve the runways, which date from the Second World War.

The airport says that in 2010, traffic to the Kitimat Terrace airport accounted for 48 per cent of all passenger traffic in northwestern BC and 47 per cent of all total aircraft flying in the northwest.

From January 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011, air traffic at the Kitimat Terrace airport increased by 20 per cent. Total passenger traffic in 2011 increased by 14 per cent.

After hearing a presentation from airport manager Carmen Hendry, Kitimat council voted to put $34,000 of its Northern Development Initiative Trust Funding toward the project.

Service to the Kitimat Terrace airport by the airlines was cut back a number of years ago due to declining passenger load, with Air Canada dropping 737 service in favour of the current turboprop aircraft.

Now with increased traffic, the apron at the terminal is beyond capacity, just with the current Air Canada Jazz and Hawkair traffic. The current airport configuration allows for two aircraft parking stands within the restricted area. That means aircraft from the third commercial line to use the airport, Central Mountain Air must park in an area considered not secure and that requires extra security personnel on at the terminal apron. This area is also used for courier and ambulance/medevac aircraft.

Traffic from corporate jets is also increasing beyond the current capacity, with overnight parking slots for two medium sized and one small aircraft. Hendry says with the number of both Gulfstream and Learjets now using the airport the apron is often full.

Hendry says that the airport has had discussions with KBR, the prime contractor for the KM LNG project and he says the company has told him that during the construction of the LNG terminal, KBR expects that as many as 600 passengers could be flying in and out of the airport each week, meaning 70,000 additional passengers will be flying in and out of the airport a year during the construction.

That also means that the airlines could upgrade the aircraft serving the Kitimat Terrace airport to a Boeing 737-800 or an Airbus 320. The means the apron must be enlarged to accommodate the aircraft so there are no “wingtip to wingtip conflicts.”

The project would add a third aircraft stand within the restricted commercial operations zone and one aircraft stand outside the restricted area that could accommodate large cargo and corporate traffic. The overnight parking area would also be increased. The airport would then have a capacity for two large Gulfstream 500 series large corporate jets and a number of smaller Learjets

Hendry said that the airport has not heard officially from Air Canada has any plans to increase the capacity of its aircraft flying into the airport to the 737 series. There is also a possibility that Westjet might add service to the Kitimat Terrace airport. Mayor Joanne Monaghan said she had had discussions with Air Canada and was told that Air Canada might send a team to evaluate the situation sometime in late summer. “No one is ready to commit,” Monaghan said and Hendry nodded in agreement.

Legacy of World War II

The last time there were major improvements to the airport runways was in 1990. The current plans call for replacement of asphalt and the creation of a safe area for snowplows so that clearing the runways during the heavy snows can be faster.

The biggest problem facing airport runways is a legacy of the Second World War, when the airport was built in 1943. Worried about a possible Japanese invasion, the runways were built with “demolition ducts” every 100 to 150 metres. The ducts were constructed using two by ten wood braces, and filled with explosives that could be detonated in case of a Japanese landing.

Divots from old ducts at Kitimat Terrace airport — This image shows the "divots" on the runway at Kitimat Terrace airport, a legacy of explosive ducts from the Second World War. (Northwest Regional Kitimat Terrace Airport)

The explosives were removed at the end of the Second World War, but the ducts remained.
“The wood is decaying and dropping down, creating bad divots on the runways,” Hendry said. The plans now call for ripping out the now 70-year-old rotten wood. The “divots” would be filled and compacted and then repaved. The runway improvement phase would cost $149,500.
Asked by council members if there would be any airport improvement fees, Hendry said the complete cost of the upgrades will be covered by NDIT and other grants.

The strain on the Kitimat Terrace airport brought controversy last fall, when the airport, together with Kitimat and Terrace Councils asked Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to station the Canadian Border Services Agency at the airport and allow the airport to use the CANPASS system for corporate aircraft. Without CBSA and CANPASS at Terrace Kitimat airport, executives from energy and other companies have to land at another airport to clear customs and immigration before going onto YXT, increasing fuel and other costs for those companies and also increasing flying time.

Toews, in a letter to Kitimat in December 2011, said that the CANPASS office at Prince Rupert is 52 kilometres too far away from the airport to service the pass system. As well, Toews said “actual demand” at the airport does not support the need for CBSA, without citing the date of any figures that would support that position.

Read Vic Toews letter to Kitimat Council (pdf)

Plans for the new airport apron at Kitimat Terrace airport.

New apron at YXT — Plans for apron expansion at Terrace Kitimat airport. (Northwest Regional Kitimat Terrace Airport)

Kitimat group launches anti-Enbridge petition/referendum

Danny Nunes, a candidate for mayor of Kitimat in the fall election, together with a group of volunteers, is launching a petition/referendum opposing the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Nunes was a gadfly candidate for Kitimat mayor in the fall election, gaining 85 votes. He is a Kitimat and Terrace based video producer and comedian, also known as Matt Mask.

Nunes pointed to a vote by Kitimat council on January 17, 2012, not to hold any council vote or referendum on the Enbridge project until after the Joint Review Panel has reported, sometime in 2013. In the meantime, Prince Rupert, Terrace and Smithers councils and the Skeena Queen Charlotte Regional District have all had votes opposing the Northern Gateway project.

“If they won’t hold a referendum, I will,” Nunes told Northwest Coast Energy News, referring to the District of Kitimat council.

He plans an old style paper petition, getting signatures by going to events or door to door, making sure that as many signatures as possible can match the voters’ list in the last municipal election. Matching with the voters’ list is one reason why Nunes says he is not going to use an online petition site.

Once he has signatures from all those Kitimat residents who oppose the Northern Gateway project– “we’ll know if the town is opposed or just a small minority” — he plans to present the petition to District of Kitimat Council, probably sometime in April.