Ever since the plan was first unveiled, many people have refused to give Enbridge the benefit of the doubt on its proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal. This week’s stinging report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on the 2010 spill of an Enbridge pipeline in Michigan reinforced their well-founded skepticism.
“Learning about Enbridge’s poor handling of the rupture, you can’t help but think of the Keystone Kops,” said NTSB chair Deborah Hersman in her agency’s scathing report. “Why didn’t they recognize what was happening? What took so long?”
The NTSB concluded that Enbridge did not fix a defect on the pipeline when it was discovered five years earlier and control room staff responded poorly when Line 6B ruptured on July 25, 2010. No measure of public relations spin and demonizing the legitimate worries of concerned citizens can alter those facts.
Ottawa and Enbridge have been engaged in an aggressive PR offensive to promote and defend their pipeline plan. Environmentalists and concerned citizens have done the same to block it. Neither side has given an inch and both sides are more deeply entrenched in their positions than ever. But the burden of proof must not be on opponents. It resides squarely – as it should – with the pipeline’s promoters.
Why is Enbridge holding so firm to a position that is obviously untenable and has no chance of succeeding?
The only answer is the bottom line financial return to the company. Capital will have to be raised to build this pipeline and a return on capital employed must be demonstrated to investors. So Enbridge has devised a plan based on the shortest route possible. It just so happens that the shortest and least expensive is not the safest, and probably not the cheapest, at least in the long term. That’s the heart of the matter.
The Port of Kitimat is simply the wrong port. Navigation of those waters is treacherous, in the best of conditions. Prince Rupert would take a lot of the risk out of that equation, but the distance is longer, which is why Enbridge dismissed it as an option. Traversing over untouched and pristine land and waterways significantly magnifies the environmental risks, but those are being glossed over. Ottawa and the company have effectively said ‘trust us’. But it is painfully obvious that we just can’t do that.
So why have other sensible options not been advanced? One might be running the pipeline along the CN’s northern rail line that travels from Edmonton to Prince Rupert. There might be others, but we haven’t seen any. It’s been Kitimat or Bust.
That is just not good enough, particularly given the massive and irreversible environmental risks and the disturbing lack of attention paid to them by Ottawa.
At a time when Ottawa is clawing back on environmental regulatory enforcement, it has also signaled a scaling back of Coast Guard surveillance. Both offer very little comfort to those that understand the importance of getting Alberta’s oil resource to market, but are not prepared to pay the ultimate price to get it there.
If moving Alberta’s oil resource to world markets is in the national interest – and I believe it is – the Harper government must go back to the drawing board and offer Canadians a comprehensive plan to deal with the very legitimate and all too real environmental concerns. Any strong national government must lead in areas where the national interest demands it. I can’t think of a better example than this pipeline.
The onus is on Ottawa and Enbridge to make their case. To date, they just haven’t done it. Cute public relations won’t change that. And if they cannot make that case, this pipeline is – and should be – dead on arrival
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Daniel Veniez
“Learning about Enbridge’s poor handling of the rupture, you can’t help but think of the Keystone Kops,” said NTSB chair Deborah Hersman in her agency’s scathing report. “Why didn’t they recognize what was happening? What took so long?”
The NTSB concluded that Enbridge did not fix a defect on the pipeline when it was discovered five years earlier and control room staff responded poorly when Line 6B ruptured on July 25, 2010. No measure of public relations spin and demonizing the legitimate worries of concerned citizens can alter those facts.
Ottawa and Enbridge have been engaged in an aggressive PR offensive to promote and defend their pipeline plan. Environmentalists and concerned citizens have done the same to block it. Neither side has given an inch and both sides are more deeply entrenched in their positions than ever. But the burden of proof must not be on opponents. It resides squarely – as it should – with the pipeline’s promoters.
Why is Enbridge holding so firm to a position that is obviously untenable and has no chance of succeeding?
The only answer is the bottom line financial return to the company. Capital will have to be raised to build this pipeline and a return on capital employed must be demonstrated to investors. So Enbridge has devised a plan based on the shortest route possible. It just so happens that the shortest and least expensive is not the safest, and probably not the cheapest, at least in the long term. That’s the heart of the matter.
The Port of Kitimat is simply the wrong port. Navigation of those waters is treacherous, in the best of conditions. Prince Rupert would take a lot of the risk out of that equation, but the distance is longer, which is why Enbridge dismissed it as an option. Traversing over untouched and pristine land and waterways significantly magnifies the environmental risks, but those are being glossed over. Ottawa and the company have effectively said ‘trust us’. But it is painfully obvious that we just can’t do that.
So why have other sensible options not been advanced? One might be running the pipeline along the CN’s northern rail line that travels from Edmonton to Prince Rupert. There might be others, but we haven’t seen any. It’s been Kitimat or Bust.
That is just not good enough, particularly given the massive and irreversible environmental risks and the disturbing lack of attention paid to them by Ottawa.
At a time when Ottawa is clawing back on environmental regulatory enforcement, it has also signaled a scaling back of Coast Guard surveillance. Both offer very little comfort to those that understand the importance of getting Alberta’s oil resource to market, but are not prepared to pay the ultimate price to get it there.
If moving Alberta’s oil resource to world markets is in the national interest – and I believe it is – the Harper government must go back to the drawing board and offer Canadians a comprehensive plan to deal with the very legitimate and all too real environmental concerns. Any strong national government must lead in areas where the national interest demands it. I can’t think of a better example than this pipeline.
The onus is on Ottawa and Enbridge to make their case. To date, they just haven’t done it. Cute public relations won’t change that. And if they cannot make that case, this pipeline is – and should be – dead on arrival
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Daniel Veniez
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