Despite pressure from city officials and residents, there will be no shut-off valves installed to protect Hamilton streams and wetlands from possible oil or bitumen spills from Line 9. The National Energy Board (NEB) now says Enbridge can start shipments through the controversial 40-year-old pipeline and just provide reports later about whether additional valves are needed anywhere along its 831 km.
The earlier NEB approval in principle for Line 9 has already shifted the approach of local groups who are currently recruiting Hamiltonians to oppose a much larger pipeline project now before the NEB – the 4600 km Energy East proposal to ship tar sands crude across six provinces from Alberta to an export terminal in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The Hamilton 350 Committee and the local chapter of Council of Canadians are mobilizing residents to flood the NEB with submissions against the 1.1 million barrel-a-day project proposed by TransCanada. Hamilton 350 is holding three “intervention” sessions on Wednesday, February 18 (register for 5:30 pm, 6:30 pm or 7:30 pm) where they will guide residents through the process of applying to the NEB for permission to submit comments.
These groups as well as several national organizations are now identifying the NEB itself as a key problem because of the regulatory agency’s refusal to examine the climate change effects of Energy East which just in Canada alone are equivalent to putting seven million cars on the roads. They have already submitted a 106,000 name petition and now aim to create more pressure with thousands of formal requests from citizens to provide input to the NEB’s Energy East review.
The regulator refused to examine potential climate effects from the increased flows and addition of bitumen to Line 9, and so far is taking the same position on Energy East – a TransCanada project that was initiated because US President Obama’s concerns about climate impacts have blocked approval of the company’s smaller Keystone XL pipeline that would carry 830,000 barrels a day across the United States.
An assessment released this week by the US Environmental Protection Agency notes that “development of oil sands crude represents a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions” and argues that development likely won’t happen without increased pipeline capacity.
“Over the 50-year lifetime of the pipeline, this could translate into releasing as much as 1.37 billion more tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” says the EPA review.
Along with ignoring climatic effects from the Line 9 pipeline, the NEB has now dropped its earlier concerns that Enbridge isn’t adding sufficient emergency shut-off valves to minimize potential spills. City of Hamilton officials pressed the regulator last fall for protection measures for wetlands and environmentally significant areas in Hamilton, but the Board has now accepted Enbridge’s argument that it just misunderstood the company’s plans.
The pipe from Sarnia to Montreal crosses nearly every river and stream in the province that flows into Lake Ontario and also passes through parts of the Beverley Swamp near Enbridge’s hub in Westover. Opponents argue the latest NEB decision “means that critical safety measures will not be implemented” and also challenge the federal regulator’s refusal to require more consultation with First Nations.
“We know the NEB role is to facilitate the speedy expansion of the tar sands and not to protect the public as it claims in its publications,” says Leigh Paulseth, of Scarborough for a Bitumen Free Future. “It is not in the public interest to go on supporting tar sands development projects which contribute exorbitantly to climate change and devastate Indigenous communities.”
Massive opposition across Canada to the tar sands and associated pipelines has generated growing criticism of the NEB including high profile accusations that it has been “captured” by the companies it is supposed to regulate. The latter came from a former deputy energy minister in seven federal and provincial governments who said the NEB’s decisions “reflect a lack of respect for hearing participants, a deep erosion of the standards and practices of natural justice that previous Boards have respected and an undemocratic restriction of participation by citizens, communities, professionals and First Nations.”
Last week Canadian Press exposed a suppressed federal government report that acknowledges “research on the toxicology of bitumen is lacking” and “very little information is available on the physical and chemical characteristics of oilsands-related products following a spill into water.” Concerns about media bias on pipeline issues have recently been stoked by revelations of a financial deal between one of Canada’s largest media conglomerates and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
In 2012 the federal Conservative government removed pipelines from oversight under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and overhauled the NEB to block participation by anyone not “directly affected” by pipeline projects arguing that pipeline approvals were being bogged down by “environmental and other radical groups.”
The Energy East project is also being reviewed by the Ontario Energy Board but its consultations have been handicapped by insufficient information from the company and TransCanada’s failure to attend public meetings.