The existing pipeline and the expansion rights now belong to the Crown’s CDEV. It is moving bitumen every day. It isn’t enough to keep up with production, but is is making money. The expansion was blocked by the federal court at the end of August. They wanted to see NEB do more environmental studies on increased tanker traffic in Southern BC and more meaningful consultation with First Nations. That new NEB process only started in November, so… its too soon to say “forget about tar sands pipelines.”
To limit the opposition to transport of bitumen to “environmentalists” on the BC coast is to not understand the mentality of the local population. We were close enough to the Exon Vadez spill to relate to the coastal devastation that occurred. One only has to look at the result of the “war in the woods”* to see the breath and depth of that opposition.
https://globalnews.ca/news/774070/twenty-years-later-the-war-in-the-woods-at-clayoquot-sound-still-reverberates-across-b-c/
My main fear is that unlike that “war” remaining non violent
this one will not. We do have a Prime Minister looking for his “just watch me” moment that surpasses the one of his father of invoking the war measures act suspending all civil liberties in Canada in the seventies.
The only way I see this ending well is to move refined product through that pipe. Even that is a stretch.
Its true. But I find that Lower Mainlanders do not understand the benefits attached to increasing their oil export capacity. They think that its all risk to BC and all benefit to Alberta. BC needs better spill response ability, even if the traffic does not increase. The Marathassa, Nathan E. Sterwart, Jake Shearer, etc. There is a company ready and waiting to hire and build vessels for spill response. They just need the funds to be released. Additionally, it isn’t as though most BC residents oppose the pipeline:
What’s in it for BC?
Construction jobs.
Some good jobs at the terminals.
PPA expanding and escort tugs. Lot of good union jobs on the North Coast could benefit from LNG and Oil pipelines.
At huge risk. To the North Coast.
The south coast already has a pipeline with TM. They want to double it. At least Trans Mountain have a better history with spills but they still had a spill right in the middle of Burnaby and a small amount got into Burrard inlet.
So why would you want to double tanker traffic under 1st and 2 narrows. Ok there has been no high profile accident. Yet.
Spill response is a joke.
I got a bit more attention when the Brand new ship had a bunker spill in English bay and nobody showed up to do anything. That was a tiny spill.
So Justine got a picture of himself and put some money into it. Still not enough to be effective.
Best to make sure there is no spill in the first place. Particularly this oil it’s thick black crap. Which according to the news last night is not worth taking out of the ground because it’s way more expensive to produce than it costs.
Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which prohibits oil tankers that are carrying more than 12 500 metric tons of crude oil or persistent oil as cargo from stopping, or unloading crude oil or persistent oil, at ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska border. The Act prohibits loading if it would result in the oil tanker carrying more than 12 500 metric tons of those oils as cargo.
The Act also prohibits vessels and persons from transporting crude oil or persistent oil between oil tankers and those ports or marine installations for the purpose of aiding the oil tanker to circumvent the prohibitions on oil tankers.
Traffic can be managed. Vancouver is the biggest port in Western Canada, but its still not all that big. Many ports have a lot more traffic than Burrard Inlet. Would you rather see that traffic trying to get in and out of Tuk? Vancouver is probably the port that is best able to meet this need.