The Northern Gateway pipeline could be the most glittering jewel of all in Premier Christy Clark’s highly-hyped jobs plan for British Columbia.
The proposed, $5.5-billion project to carry Alberta crude from the oil sands through northern B.C. to the West Coast port of Kitimat would create 4,000 well-paying construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions.
Yet, awash in mutual admiration as women leaders of Canada’s two westernmost provinces, Ms. Clark nonetheless found herself differing with Alberta’s freshly-minted premier, Alison Redford, on the ambitious Gateway megaproject during Ms. Clark’s brief visit to Calgary last week.
A study of west coast forests in California, Oregon and Washington concludes that biofuel from forests could increase carbon dioxide emissions by at least 14 per cent.
Oregon State University calls the study “the largest and most comprehensive yet done on the effect of biofuel” from the US west coast.
A diagram from the Oregon State University shows how using biofuels would increase the carbon emissions by releasing more forest carbon, including the processing and transportation of biofuel. (Oregon State University)
The study, published Sunday inNature Climate Change, contradicts previous findings that suggest biofuel could be either carbon neutral or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It is uncertain whether the conclusions of the study could apply to northwestern British Columbia, due to different ecological conditions, including pine beetle devastation and the effects of climate change.
For four years, the Oregon State study examined 80 forest types in 19 ecological regions in the three states, ranging from temperate rainforests to semi-arid woodlands. It included both private and public lands and different forest management practices.
Tara Hudiberg, a PhD candidate at Oregon State and lead author, said in an e-mail interview, “We applied thinning scenarios which would remove whole trees and use the merchantable portion for wood products and the rest for bio-energy use (tops, branches, smaller trees of less then five inch DBH (diameter at breast height ).
“On the [US] West Coast, we found that projected forest biomass removal and use for bio-energy in any form will release more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than current forest management practices.
“Most people assume that wood bio-energy will be carbon-neutral, because the forest re-grows and there’s also the chance of protecting forests from carbon emissions due to wildfire,” Hudiburg said. “However, our research showed that the emissions from these activities proved to be more than the savings.”
The only exception was if forests in high fire-risk zones become weakened due to insect outbreaks or drought, which impairs their growth and carbon sequestration as well as increasing the potential for large forest fires (a situation prevalent through much of British Columbia due to the devastation caused by the pine beetle.) The study says in that situation, it is possible that some thinning for bio-energy production might result in lower emissions in such cases.
“Until now there have been a lot of misconceptions about impacts of forest thinning, fire prevention and bio-fuels production as it relates to carbon emissions from forests,” said Beverly Law, a professor in the OSU Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society and co-author of this study.
(Oregon State University)
“If our ultimate goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, producing bio-energy from forests will be counterproductive,” Law said. “Some of these forest management practices may also have negative impacts on soils, biodiversity and habitat. These issues have not been thought out very fully.”
The study examined thousands of forest plots with detailed data and observations, considering 27 parameters, including the role of forest fire, emissions savings from bio-energy use, wood product substitution, insect infestations, forest thinning, energy and processes needed to produce bio-fuels, and many others.
It looked at four basic scenarios: “business as usual”; forest management primarily for fire prevention purposes; additional levels of harvest to prevent fire but also make such operations more economically feasible; and significant bio-energy production while contributing to fire reduction.
Compared to “business as usual” or current forest management approaches, all of the other approaches increased carbon emissions, the study found. Under the most optimal levels of efficiency, management just for fire prevention increased it two percent; for better economic return, six percent; and for higher bio-energy production, 14 percent.
“We looked at CHP (combined heat and power from combustion) and cellulosic ethanol and we accounted for all sources of Carbon emissions from harvest to use,” Hudiberg said.
She added, “We don’t believe that an optimal efficiency of production is actually possible in real-world conditions. With levels of efficiency that are more realistic, we project that the use of these forests for high bio-energy production would increase carbon emissions 17 percent from their current level.”
About 98 percent of the forests in the three western US states are now estimated to be a carbon sink, meaning that even with existing management approaches the forests sequester more carbon than they release to the atmosphere. Forests capture a large portion of the carbon emitted worldwide, and
some of this carbon is stored in pools such as wood and soil that can
last hundreds to thousands of years, the scientists said.
The study suggests that increases in harvest volume on the US West Coast, for any reason, will instead result in average increases in emissions above current levels.
“Energy policy implemented without full carbon accounting and an understanding of the underlying processes risks increasing rather than decreasing emissions,” they conclude.
When asked about British Columbia, Hudiberg noted: “We are not aware of anything in particular, but we do know that BC forests may (or already are) be more susceptible to climate change impacts and insect outbreaks. So initially, it may be a more suitable region for bio-energy but the same analysis we did here would have to be done [in BC] to know for sure. She cautions, “The study conclusions are based on the regional conditions and current regional carbon uptake with current management practices For other areas, the current conditions need to be assessed before deciding if bio-energy will increase or decrease carbon emissions.”
Biofuel in northwestern BC
Biofuels are seen as a growth industry in northwestern British Columbia, with a number of companies are starting to work on various forms of biofuel investments including large corporations as well as medium and small business.
In Kitimat, Pytrade has proposed a biomass plant that would use pyrolysis to convert wood waste into liquid bio-fuels and also generate heat that can be used by green houses used to train people in horticulture in conjunction with North West Community College. Pytrade also plans to make money by selling carbon offsets for every tonne of C02 not emitted into the atmosphere they will make money by selling credits. An application by company for a provincial a one million dollar Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) grant has been approved.
General Biofuels Canada is planning a 500,000 metric tonne per year wood pellet facility in Terrace. This project would use hemlock fibre from “non-saw grade fibre” from area forest licence holders.
Toronto-based CORE BioFuel Inc. Wants to build a plant, likely in Houston, (and perhaps more plants) to turn forest waste fibre into gasoline. Each plant would cost $100 million and require 220,000 tons of fibre a year to produce 67 million litres of gas.
As well as the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, the study involved institutions in Germany and France. It was supported by the US Dept. Of Energy.
When Royal Dutch Shell Canada purchased the Methanex/ Cenovus Energy plant and marine terminal in Kitimat Wednesday, company spokesman Paul Doolan told the media that Shell “is now exploring the potential for an LNG export terminal on the site,” but refused to give any time line for the project.
Now sources have confirmed to Northwest Coast Energy News that at this time it looks as if there will be no major developments in the Shell project until 2015.
Employees of Cenovus were told after the sale announcement that the plant’s condensate operations would be “business as usual” until sometime in 2015.
(After the sale, Cenovus told the media it doesn’t expect changes in
the regular shipments of condensate to change “for the foreseeable
future.” )
As anyone who has gone through a takeover or similar management transition knows, a company’s new management may have ideas that they haven’t discussed with the old regime.
The 2015 date is logical, however, since 2015 is the projected launch date for the first project, KM LNG partners’ Kitimat LNG project.
There are already two projects in the “pipeline” so to speak, the Kitimat LNG and BC LNG projects. As discussions during the June National Energy Board hearings that led to the approval of the KM LNG export licence last week showed, the two companies must come to an agreement on some of the pipeline capacity coming into Kitimat, sharing “the molecules,” that favourite phrase of natural gas analysts.
Shell will also have to go through the National Energy Board process for granting an export licence.
With energy companies rushing to exploit the shale gas resources in northeastern BC and in Alberta. and growing demand for the natural gas in Asia, transportation of the natural gas is a big question, since it appears Shell and its partners will have to build new pipelines since the existing pipelines into the Kitimat region will be at full capacity.
Where will that new pipeline be built? How will that new pipeline be built? That question is already being widely debated in Kitimat. Ever since Enbridge has announced that it too is interested in joining the natural gas export boom, the question has been: could a natural gas pipeline replace the proposed Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline or does Enbridge intend to build two pipelines? If it is the latter, Enbridge, and possibly Shell, can expect years of hearings, protests and delays because while people in northwestern BC are generally accepting of natural gas projects, there is fierce and still growing opposition to the bitumen pipeline.
A delegation from the giant Chinese state owned agribusiness, Heilongjiang Beidahuang Nongken Group Co. (Beidahuang Group) toured Kitimat and Kitimat harbour Thursday, to evaluate the harbour for possible expansion beyond the current facilities owned by Rio Tinto Alcan and the Methanex/ Cenovus Energy terminal purchased Wednesday by Shell Canada.
Accompanying the delegation from the Beidahuang Group were executives from Hangfeng Evergeen, one of the world’s major producers of fertilizer, with headquarters in Toronto, but with most of its business in China and Southeast Asia.
Kitimat Mayor Joanne Monaghan said the delegation is on a tour of British Columbia ports looking for the best place to ship agricultural products to and from China. Monaghan said that when the delegation met with BC premier Christy Clark earlier, Clark suggested that they include Kitimat on their itinerary.
In China, Beidahuang operates 104 state-owned farms, supplying crops to Beijing, Shanghai, and the military, using about 1,400,000 tonnes of fertilizer a year.
As an exporter, Beidahuang sells kidney beans, green mung beans, small red beans, cow peas, and soybeans to Canada, South America, South Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe.
Beidahuang has been aggressively expanding its holdings around the world in the past few years, purchasing or developing agricultural holdings in Canada, Russia, the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. As an importer, Beidahuang deals in wheat, corn, soybeans, fruit and vegetables and wine. The company also has holdings in oil and mining.
In 2010, Hanfeng Evergreen signed a joint venture agreement with Beidahuang to establish a fertilizer factory in northern Heilongjiang province
Monaghan said the delegation was looking at possibly either new or expanded port facilities in Kitimat to handle the import and export of the agricultural products and fertilizers. It will be some time before any decision is made, since the delegation will return to China and evaluate its tour before making any decision.
Beidahuang’s world wide expansion has been somewhat controversial.
Bloomberg reported that Beidahuang’s $1.5 billion investment in Argentina’s Patagonia, which would include upgrading unused land and expanding port facilities there, brought objections from local farmers and activists because the agreement with government of Rio Negro province means farmers “will be kept captive by the Chinese for 20 years” since the agreement would force farmers to sell their produce to Beidahuang.
Beidahuang is also heavily investing in palm oil plantations across Southeast Asia, which brings objections from environmental activists who say vulnerable and valuable tropical rainforest is destroyed so the palm oil plantations can be established.
The former Methanex site is seen the red square in this map of the Kitimat service centre prepared by Enbridge as part of its Northern Gateway pipeline proposal and filed with the Joint Review panel. The yellow line is the proposed Enbridge bitumen pipeline. The dark red line is the proposed pipeline that would feed the Kitimat LNG and likely the BC LNG projects, where the red pipeline route has white, that is the Pacific Trails Pipeline. See How Kitimat harbour will look if both Northern Gateway and KM LNG go ahead.
Updated Oct. 20, 2011, 0955
Kitimat mayor Joanne Monaghan has confirmed that Royal Dutch Shell has purchased the former Methanex site in town, “as a first step toward a proposed Liquified Natural Gas facility in Kitimat.”
Monaghan said she met with Shell executives on Wednesday afternoon, when the long rumoured purchase of the Methanex site was confirmed.
Thursday morning, Shell spokesman Stephen Doolan said that the company and its partners
also acquired the Kitimat Marine Terminal. Shell’s partners include Korea Gas Corp, Mitsubishi Corp and China National Petroleum Corp, Doolan said.
Both sites were owned by Cenovus Energy which purchased them in 2010 from Methanex for a reported $40 million.
Monaghan also said that the Shell officials said the company will not be making an announcement of the details of their plans for another few weeks.
If the Shell project goes ahead, it will be the third liquified natural gas project in Kitimat. The others are KM LNG partners’ (Apache, Encana and EOG) Kitimat LNG plant at Bish Cove and the smaller project from BC LNG.
The Methanex plant on the Kitimat river permanently ceased methanol production November 1, 2005. Methanex currently uses the Cenovus terminal in Kitimat to import
methanol to supply customers in western Canada. Cenovus uses the terminal and site to process condensate, used to dilute bitumen, that arrives by ocean tanker and then is shipped by rail to Alberta.
The future of condensate operation has been in doubt since the announcement of the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, since it was expected that the Cenovus condensate operation would have been absorbed into the Enbridge operation.
If the Methanex/Cenovus site is converted to a full LNG facility, current operations will have to be decommissioned first, Monaghan said.
Multiple sources in Kitimat have been saying for the past month that Shell had purchased the Methanex site, but official conformation only came from the mayor late Wednesday.
This photograph from the geomorphology report shows how bedrock spread lead to catastrophic landslides along a 2.5 kilometre scarp (photo lower centre to upper right) and a 1.3 km scarp (photo distance) on the ridge above Parrott Creek. The yellow dashed line delineates the landslides’ headscarp. The arrow shows the direction of movement.
A retired geomorphologist for the BC Forest Service, who lives in Smithers, says a break in the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, triggered by a landslide, is “inevitable” given the highly complex terrain that the pipeline will cross.
James Schwab bases his peer-reviewed paper on his 30 years experience in northwestern British Columbia.
“The unstable mountainous terrain across west-central BC is not a safe location for pipelines. Eventually a landslide will sever a pipeline,” he says. He calls for investigation of a safer, alternative route for the pipeline.
Schwab’s report says the Nechako Plateau appears relatively benign, but, he says, large landslides have occurred in volcanic rock overlying other older volcanic and sedimentary rock.
Along the Morice River, the report says sediments have historically experienced landslides. Road construction and wildfires have reactivated these landslides. The proposed pipeline corridor crosses an historic earth flow west of Owen Creek, moving sediment along Owen Creek and moving sediments near Fenton Creek and Lamprey Creek
At Gosnell Creek, Schwab says, shifting channels on active alluvial fans pose road maintenance challenges at present and, he says, pipelines will likely bring similar challenges crossing these fans. The report says the creek banks are unstable at Crystal Creek and Gosnell Creek pipeline crossing points.
The report says the volcanic bedrock of the Hazelton Mountains is “inherently unstable” and geological surveys show there were many landslides in prehistoric times. Three more recent documented large landslides within the Bulkley Range of the Hazelton Mountains have severed the natural gas pipeline since its construction in the early 1970s; large landslides have also impacted forest roads and highways.
He says that gravity is deforming the slopes in the volcanic bedrock found in the Kitnayakwa, Clore and Bernie watersheds and the report calls for a thorough geotechnical investigation to determine the stability of the bedrock and hill slope in areas before the pipeline is built. “Avoidance of these unstable hill slopes is generally the preferred engineering development option,” the report says.
The report examines where the pipeline corridor crosses through a mountainside to the southeast of the Clore Canyon.
The highly fractured bedrock in the canyon is undergoing active mass erosion. unstable rock reaches up to about 1200 m above sea level and extends around the mountain into an adjacent tributary valley. This bedrock along the north and west side of the mountain is extensively gullied and contains many landslide scarps and an actively moving landslide.
The active instability of the eastern mountain slope places major constraints on development, Schwab says.
Schwab says the Kitimat Ranges are characterized by steep narrow valleys, which create “colluvial-fluvial fans … at the base of most steep gully channels in the Hoult Creek and Upper Kitimat watershed.” The steep gullies extend from the mountains in to the valley or directly into Hoult Creek or the Kitimat River.
Many of these high-energy systems in the Kitimat Ranges experienced debris flows during extreme rainstorms in the fall of 1978 and the fall of 1992. Debris flows commonly occur under seemingly normal storm events during summer convective storms and fall frontal rainstorms.
Debris flows are powerful landslides that can damage or rupture pipelines, the report says.
Hunter Creek, a large active alluvial fan, has historically pushed the Kitimat River across the valley, Schwab’s report says. In 1992, road and levée construction caused a catastrophic channel change.
The Kitimat trough, on the road between Terrace and Kitimat, is actually a fjord uplifted by ancient geological forces. The valley has deep deposits of sediments both from ocean and land, left by glaciers, which have produced landslides from prehistoric times to the present day.
Recent large flow slides occurred at Mink Creek (winter 1992-93) and Lakelse Lake in May and June 1962. A large submarine flow slide occurred in sensitive marine muds at the front of the fiord-head delta at Kitimat Arm in April 1975.
These recent landslides serve to show the continuing sensitivity of the glaciomarine sediments in the Kitimat Trough and the marine sediments on the fan-delta at the fiord-head of Kitimat Arm. Natural and human caused factors such as increases in surface load, removal of lateral support by stream bank undercutting or excavation, vibration by heavy equipment, earthquake shock, high water pressures and interruption of intertidal drainage can trigger these landslides. Thus, the potential exists for landslides to occur during pipeline construction and in the future.
This large swampy area on Lakesle Lake is the location of the May 1962 flow slide. Highway 37 crosses the landslide depletion zone. (The highway was closed for several days after the 1962 slide.) The provincial park is in the middle left of this photo from the report.
Schwab says the pipeline will encounter the glacial sediments during construction at Cecil Creek, Deception Creek, Wedeene River, Little Wedeene River, along the west side of Kitimat Arm and along Chist Creek. He says that even minor erosion along those creek banks can expose the glacial sediments, which are then displaced by as the sediments are exposed. “Pipelines crossing glaciomarine sediments must therefore avoid areas that lie within potential flow slide depletion zones as landslides will break or disrupt pipeline service.”
The executive summary of the report concludes by saying.
Landslides travel long distances and damage linear infrastructure such as pipelines. Six large rock slides occurred in west central B.C. since 1978, five of these since 1999, and four since 2002. Three of the six rock slides severed the natural gas pipeline (Howson landslides in 1978 and 1999, and Zymoetz landslide in 2002). Damage to linear infrastructure commonly occurs in run out zones many kilometres from the initial landslide. This has occurred with recent landslides in west central B.C.; the longest traveled in excess of four kilometres along a slope of 9°. Therefore, the potential for damage to pipelines extends to unstable terrain and potential landslides that start well outside the construction corridor.
The Bulkley Valley Research Centre, based in Smithers, is a not-for-profit organization that aims to improve the knowledge of resource sustainability by facilitating what its website calls “credible research projects.”
This report was corrected on Oct. 25, changing the headline, correcting the main link to the Bulkley Valley Research Centre that was not visible due to a coding error and adding a link to the geomorphology report news release.
Dieter Wagner, of Douglas Channel Watch, briefs District of Kitimat Council on the perils of Wright Sound, Oct. 17, 2011. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)
Activists in northwestern British Columbia are ramping up their scrutiny of Enbridge’s plans for the Northern Gateway pipeline, including the company’s contingency plans in case something goes wrong.
There is also growing controversy over one part of the pipeline process that is separate from the Joint Review Panel, the TERMPOL process that is supposed to ensure the safety of shipping on the west coast. TERMPOL, which is run by the Canadian Coast Guard on behalf of Transport Canada, has two major flaws, opponents say, first, that unlike the Joint Review Panel, TERMPOL’s proceedings are secret and, second, participation in the process for shipping companies and others is voluntary.
At the regular bi-weekly meeting of the District of Kitimat Council on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 Dieter Wagner, of the group Douglas Channel Watch gave a detailed analysis of what his group says are the dangers involved in shipping supertankers along the west coast of British Columbia and up the Douglas Channel to Kitimat.
Wagner told the Council that the TERMPOL documents on Northern Gateway shipping are confusing, contradictory and often difficult for the layperson, even those with years of experience in the waters of northwestern British Columbia to follow.
Wagner said that many areas of the coast approaching Douglas Channel are tricky to navigate with shallow water, rocks and shoals and thousands of crab traps, all very close to the proposed tanker routes. Wagner said the TERMPOL study shows that in some of the areas approaching the Channel, the charts show 10 fathoms, (60 feet or 18.28 metres) while the supertankers draw 70 feet.
Wagner said that on some parts of the coast, sailors can see kelp, often growing on gravel beds, and since growing kelp is less than 70 feet high, it is another area that could be damaged if a tanker runs aground.
That means, Wagner said, the smallest mistake would mean that tankers would run aground. He also pointed out the plans for the pilots to board the tankers once the ships are already in shallow water. He cautioned the plans say that under some circumstances, boarding by the pilot could be delayed, probably by bad weather and he doubted whether the companies involved would want to delay their tankers by two or three or more days, as BC Ferries are sometimes delayed in really rough weather.
The most dangerous area, Wagner said, is Wright Sound at the entrance to Douglas Channel, where the tankers would have to make a tight turn to enter the Channel. Ferries and other ships heading south also have to make a turn and it was in Wright Sound that the ferry Queen of the North went off course, struck Gill Island and sunk. Wagner told the District Council what the Gitga’ata First Nation said at last year’s Enbridge rally, the Queen of the North is still leaking oil.
(Other people in the Kitimat region, including the aboriginal people who have sailed the area for thousands of years, also express concern about Wright Sound, not only due to congestion from all the traffic using the Inside Passage but because of tricky winds and currents, especially in bad weather).
Wagner also said he doubted the extra navigational aides that Enbridge has promised to install along the route would stop human error accidents any more than traffic lights do.
He also said the up to 225 supertankers that would be used for the Northern Gateway project, crossing the Pacific to China or going down to California would greatly add to the green house gases going into the atmosphere from what he said was half a billion tons a fuel a year burned by the ships. Tugs, liquified natural gas tankers and other ships would also to the emissions.
He concluded by saying that there are no Canadian regulations governing the use of the escort tugs contemplated by Enbridge’s plans. Wagner also said that everything in the documents from Enbridge are just promises and there is no way at the moment to ensure that the promises are kept.
At the conclusion of the presentation, Councillor Randy Halyk, who is also a candidate for mayor, told his colleagues that one of the biggest problems with the review of the Northern Gateway is the secrecy of the TERMPOL process.
John Cotter of Canadian Press reports that at least 4,000 people have signed up to speak at the Northern Gateway Joint Review hearings, even though the panel staff has not yet finished counting the applications for oral arguments.
More than 4,000 people and groups have registered to speak at hearings into a proposed pipeline that would ship crude from Alberta’s oil sands to fill supertankers on the British Columbia coast.
Opponents of the $5.5-billion Enbridge Inc. Northern Gateway pipeline hope the surge of public interest will pressure Ottawa not to approve the project.
Cotter also says Enbridge is becoming worried about the delays and is now saying activists are trying to manipulate the hearings:
Calgary-based Enbridge says it welcomes public input, but is concerned the process could bog down.
Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said the project is already eight months to a year behind. If approved, it’s possible the startup date for the pipeline could be pushed beyond 2017.
He said Enbridge is also concerned people could be manipulated by groups that hope to turn Northern Gateway into an anti-oils ands battleground similar to the Keystone XL pipeline debate in the United States.
“There is no question that the groups internationally who are opposed to the development of oil sands oil are focused on both projects,” Mr. Stanway said.
In a news release, the group Forest Ethics says the 4,000 oral witnesses will far surpass the 558 that spoke before the Mackenzie Valley pipeline hearings in the 1970s.
The news release quotes Jolan Bailey, Canadian Outreach Coordinator with ForestEthics as saying: “It’s clear this project has struck a very public nerve,”. “Enbridge’s plan to punch a pipeline through to the West Coast has hit a wall of opposition that stretches from Kitimat to Kalamazoo.”
ForestEthics says at least three residents from Michigan plan to speak about the damage wrought by Enbridge’s spill into the Kalamazoo River in July of 2010.
If there are any doubts about the confusing nature of National Energy Board hearings, at least for the public, as opposed to energy lawyers, that can be found in the decision relating to the application for the KM LNG limited partnership to export natural gas. The NEB granted a licence that will allow the partners, Apache, Encana and EOG to export natural gas to Asia for the next 20 years.
One of the questions at the hearings, with many people in the northwest also worried about the upcoming Joint Review Panel hearings on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, was what about the environmental effects of the natural gas pipeline?
It all depends on the legal terms “necessary connection.”
During the briefings in Kitimat months before the actual June hearings, NEB officials said that the environmental implications of the natural gas project would not be part of the consideration because the board’s mandate in this case was whether or not to grant the export licence. The NEB officials said that since the Kitimat LNG project was almost entirely within the province of British Columbia, the environment was the responsibility of the province, not the board nor the federal government.
At the LNG hearings, lawyers for the energy companies made similar arguments, as the NEB decision relates, saying that KM LNG’s lawyers maintained that there was no “necessary connection” between the pipeline and the environment and so “noted that the Board is no longer required to conduct environmental assessment for gas export licence applications because those applications, unlike certain facilities applications do not trigger an environmental assessment under the CEA [Canadian Environmental Assessment ] Act and the only environmental side effects, if any, the board could consider would be those not already studied by the province.”
(The January hearings on the Enbridge pipeline are different because that in terms of the NEB mandate is a “facility” hearing, not a simple licence hearing and therefore portions of the federal Environmental Assessment Act come into play.)
In the decision, the board members rejected those arguments:
First, the board said that even if the application does not trigger a CEA Act assessment, “that does not preclude the Board from considering potential environmental effects and directly related social effects of gas exports when assessing the application.”
The NEB went on to to note that the board has found a “necessary connection” in previous gas export applications, therefore: “The Board will consider environmental and related social effects of a proposed export if those effects are necessarily connected to the exportation….”
So the board found that it did have the jurisdiction to examine the environmental effects of marine shipping activities, the natural gas terminal and the Pacific Trails Pipeline that would lead to the terminal at Kitimat.
On the pipeline and the terminal, the board then says: “that no evidence was placed on the record to suggest that there are any environmental effects directly connected to this proposed export that has not already been addressed by the appropriate regulatory agencies.”
As for the effects of marine activities the NEB says the Transport Canada TERMPOL process (which is also looking at the bitumen tankers that will be on the coast if the Enbridge project goes ahead) was sufficient.
The Board is of the view that potential environmental effects and directly related social effects have been considered ….or will be considered through TERMPOL….Based on the foregoing, the Board is of the view that work conducted under the relevant federal and provincial legislation and process is not warranted and the Board has been able to to adequately consider the environmental and related social effects in making a decision on the export licence.
In other words, the National Energy Board ruled that it can maintain its jurisdiction over the environment, if necessary, but not necessarily do anything about it, if someone else is apparently already doing the job.
As was frequently pointed out in the June hearings, the NEB mandate is what is called “Market-Based Procedure” when it comes to natural gas. That policy came into effect in 1987, and was founded “on the premise that the marketplace will generally operate in such a way that Canadian requirements for natural gas will be met a fair market prices.”
The year 1987, of course, was at the height of the political and economic love affair with the marketplace. Now in October 2011, the “Occupy” demonstrations in almost every major city on this planet and many small towns, show that this love affair has gone sour.
While the Enbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review has a wider mandate, the problem remains.
No image of planet Earth shows national boundaries. Nor does an image of planet Earth show the bureaucratic fault lines between the National Energy Board, Transport Canada, the Environmental Assessment Agency, not mention the provincial agencies.
The mandate for the NEB is more than 25 years out of date. National Energy Board hearings are limited by narrow rules of procedure which the energy company lawyers try again and again to use to their advantage.
These problems aren’t going to go away as the natural gas rush accelerates.
No one is looking at the “big picture.” Who knows what will fall through the cracks? No one ever cares about the unexpected consequences until there is 20/20 hindsight.
The problem, of course, is that there is no recourse for this problem. Stephen Harper’s government is cutting staff at Environment Canada, defunding environmental advocacy and watch dog groups (even those supported by industry) and like all conservatives somehow think that more deregulation will somehow bring back the jobs that the deregulated financial sector destroyed.
The NEB notes that the 1985 Western Accord that set up the current rules for the board is also called the “Halloween Agreement.”
Rio Tinto Alcan has announced that it is “streamling” its aluminum assets after a “strategic review.”
The company says: “The move will allow Rio Tinto Alcan to concentrate on its strategy to
grow the value of its high quality, tier one assets and improve the
product group’s financial performance.”
Six assets in Australia and New Zealand will be spun off into a new company for sale, while a second group of seven assets in France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom will continue to be managed by RTA while the company considers divestment options.
Rio Tinto’s interests in six Australian and New Zealand assets will transfer into a new business unit, to be called Pacific Aluminium, and be managed and reported separately from the Rio Tinto Alcan product group prior to divestment. These are:
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Australia: Gove bauxite mine and alumina refinery, Boyne Smelters and the associated Gladstone Power Station, the Tomago smelter and the Bell Bay smelter
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New Zealand: New Zealand Aluminium Smelters
A second group of seven non-core assets will continue to be managed by Rio Tinto Alcan while it further investigates divestment options.
These assets include:
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France and Germany: Three Specialty Alumina plants and the Gardanne refinery
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United States: Sebree smelter
United Kingdom: Lynemouth smelter and associated power station, for which potential options include closure
The news release quotes Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese as saying: “The assets identified for divestment are sound businesses that are well-managed with productive workforces. But they are no longer aligned with our strategy and we believe they have a bright future under new ownership. The strength of our balance sheet means that we can choose the most opportune method and timing to divest these assets, which may not occur until the economic climate improves. In the meantime, we will continue to run these operations safely and efficiently.
“This move is a further significant step towards achieving our performance targets in the Aluminium product group. We have already made good progress, with plans in place to generate sustainable performance improvement, and we are investing at a number of our core assets.”
Rio Tinto Alcan chief executive Jacynthe Cote said “We are already well on our way to building a truly outstanding aluminum business. Streamlining the product group allows Rio Tinto Alcan to concentrate its efforts even more on driving performance improvements and investing in growth to increase shareholder value.”
Rio Tinto says it has consultations with affected stakeholders and the workforces involved.
For four years, the Oregon State study examined 80 forest types in 19 ecological regions in the three states, ranging from temperate rainforests to semi-arid woodlands. It included both private and public lands and different forest management practices. 
The former Methanex site is seen the red square in this map of the Kitimat service centre prepared by Enbridge as part of its Northern Gateway pipeline proposal and filed with the Joint Review panel. The yellow line is the proposed Enbridge bitumen pipeline. The dark red line is the proposed pipeline that would feed the Kitimat LNG and likely the BC LNG projects, where the red pipeline route has white, that is the Pacific Trails Pipeline. See
This photograph from the geomorphology report shows how bedrock spread lead to catastrophic landslides along a 2.5 kilometre scarp (photo lower centre to upper right) and a 1.3 km scarp (photo distance) on the ridge above Parrott Creek. The yellow dashed line delineates the landslides’ headscarp. The arrow shows the direction of movement.
Dieter Wagner, of Douglas Channel Watch, briefs District of Kitimat Council on the perils of Wright Sound, Oct. 17, 2011. (Robin Rowland/Northwest Coast Energy News)