Protests are planned this week as new evidence emerges that Enbridge Inc plans to export diluted bitumen through Ontario from Alberta’s tar sands to markets in the US and China. There’s a local march on Saturday coinciding with actions in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and numerous US locations against the proposed use of the company’s 38-year-old Line 9 pipeline that passes through Hamilton on its way from Sarnia to Montreal.
In a report issued late last week, the Pembina Institute says all existing and proposed pipelines will be needed by 2020 to ship the tar sands production already approved. This includes the partly constructed Keystone XL heading south through the US (980,000 barrels per day), the proposed Northern Gateway aimed westerly across British Columbia (525,000 barrels per day), and the smallest but already existing Enbridge eastern route that includes Line 9 that the company is seeking to expand to 300,000 barrels per day.
Enbridge officials have previously argued that Line 9 will only occasionally transport diluted bitumen (dilbit) and have suggested the reversal of the flow direction in this pipeline will mainly serve to provide cheaper western Canadian oil to Ontario and points east. At present, however, there are no refineries east of Sarnia capable of upgrading dilbit, except one in New Brunswick not accessible by pipeline and the business media says it is apparently financially viable.
That has helped convince opponents that Enbridge is reviving earlier plans to export dilbit via an Exxon Mobil pipeline that runs from Montreal to Portland, Maine. That’s definitely the view of the huge 350.org climate action group who are coordinating anti-Line 9 actions this week.
“ExxonMobil is gearing up to move dirty tar sands oil east through Ontario and Quebec into New England to reach a shipping port in Portland, Maine,” says a statement from Tar Sands 350 Northeast in Boston. “But the people of eastern Canada and New England have their own plan and are forming a wall of opposition to keep the east tar sands free.”
More than a dozen rallies and meetings are planned in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire including a march in Portland, Maine to the dock on the Atlantic capable of loading oil tankers. 350.org has been widely credited with convincing US president Barack Obama to at least temporarily halt the Keystone XL pipeline.
The affiliated Hamilton 350 Committee on climate change will lead a 4 pm march across Burlington on Saturday from the central library on New Street to Spencer Smith Park on the waterfront to draw attention to the potential of bitumen spills into local waterways flowing into Lake Ontario. The march will be preceded by a free film showing at the library starting at 2 pm sponsored by multiple local groups.
Burlington’s mayor and council received a staff report and heard from Burlington Green in early December and are now organizing a public meeting for February 7 in lieu of receiving an Enbridge delegation at a regularly scheduled council committee as was done in Hamilton last fall. Mayor Rick Goldring says his city hasn’t decided how best to respond to the Enbridge plans, but several other cities including Hamilton and Toronto, as well as the Hamilton Conservation Authority are pressing for a full federal environmental assessment of the Enbridge proposals that were formally filed with the National Energy Board in late November.
In addition to the substantial climatic impacts of the Canadian tar sands developments, there is concern about the safety of transporting diluted bitumen through an old pipe, especially after a disastrous 2010 rupture that contaminated 60 km of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and which has so far cost Enbridge over $800 million to clean up. Dozens of residents in the area were sickened by the release of the volatile diluents used by Enbridge to make the molasses-like bitumen flow through a pipeline, and the US National Transportation Safety Board slammed the company for responding “like Keystone Cops”.