In a letter filed last week with the National Energy Board, Enbridge dismisses challenges to the sale of the company’s oil pipeline from the city, Knollwood golf course, and others. It is urging a quick approval of the transfer of ownership of Line 10 to a newly-formed American company called Westover Express which is wholly owned by United Refining Corporation (URC).
The city continues to urge removal of decommissioned portions of the pipeline in rural Hamilton. Its July submission to the NEB pointed to “potential long-term impacts” of oil residues on the environment and urged that “Westover Express should be required to remove any decommissioned portions of the pipeline, assuring that site remediation is performed as required.” The city submission also argued that “leaving a decommissioned pipeline installed in place could have significant and long-lasting implications such as increased costs for future city capital works projects.”
Council’s position is now being bolstered by Knollwood which contends the proposed new owner is a “shell company” and that shifting responsibility for the decommissioned pipe across their golf course “would amount to a de facto abandonment of the pipeline in place, and would be contrary to the public interest.”
Line 10 runs from Hamilton into the United States and feeds URC’s refinery in Warren Pennsylvania. Enbridge recently replaced a 35 km section across rural Hamilton with a larger pipe that nearly tripled its capacity. It also rerouted several kilometres leaving old pipe in the ground across Knollwood’s property and other locations.
Lawyers for the golf course argue that “the sale of the decommissioned portions of the Line 10 Pipeline, particularly those which are not adjacent to the Line 10 Replacement Pipeline, would serve no purpose but to relieve Enbridge of responsibility for its decommissioned pipeline, and to permit Enbridge to avoid its maintenance and reclamation obligations to Knollwood Golf Limited and other similarly-affected landowners.”
Knollwood’s lawyers also contend that “Westover Express’ abandonment funds will be insufficient to cover the cost of removal of the Line 10 pipeline from the Knollwood Golf Limited properties, and Westover Express will have no additional assets or funds to make up the shortfall.”
Significantly the Knollwood lawyers remind the NEB that “at no point did Enbridge disclose the pending sale of the Line 10 Pipeline prior to applying for and obtaining leave to decommission the line.” That suggests a flawed approval process – something that has also been a contention of the city whose earlier request that the old pipe be removed was apparently not noticed by the NEB. The city initiated a legal challenge but dropped it with no public explanations.
Enbridge struck a deal with URC in 2014 prior to applying to expand Line 10 and leave the abandoned portions in the ground. The agreement secured URC funding for the expansion and gave Enbridge the right to force the US company to purchase the entire line. But when this was revealed to city councillors by the Hamilton 350 Committee, the Enbridge official in charge of the application denied any knowledge of it.
The 350 committee was one of several local groups that actively opposed the Line 10 expansion because of its environmental and climate implications and the failure to obtain agreements with indigenous peoples. They argued that tripling the capacity of the pipeline could twice as many greenhouse gas emissions as twelve new coal-fired electricity plants – twice the number shut down in the last decade by the province of Ontario.
Last week’s Enbridge letter to the NEB declares that “Westover Express is not a shell corporation” and dismisses other arguments of the city and Knollwood.
“The majority of the comments provided to the Board are not relevant to the sale and purchase of Line 10 from Enbridge to Westover Express, have already been considered in previous regulatory applications or processes, and are outside the scope of this application,” states the Enbridge letter. “These comments include concerns related to whether portions of the pipeline should be decommissioned in place or removed, Enbridge’s corporate structure, environmentally sensitive areas in and around the right of way, potential changes in operating status, the status of Enbridge’s Line 11 Pipeline and the current physical condition of the pipeline.”