LandKeepers News Archive
QCI Observer Editors Opinion
March 31 2010 | News Articles | Queen Charlotte Islands Observer
Enbridge Inc. is a Calgary-based company that is seeking approval from the federal government to build a 1,200 kilometre twinned pipeline between the tar sands of Alberta and the north coast port of Kitimat. The pipeline would carry crude oil from Alberta to Kitimat and condensate – required to thin the sticky tar sands oil – back to Alberta.
At Kitimat, the oil would be loaded into supertankers headed for fresh markets in China and other far eastern countries. Apparently, there is demand in Asia for Alberta’s tar sands oil, thus the need for the pipeline, the terminal, and the supertankers. The pipeline itself would not come anywhere near Haida Gwaii but islanders are nonetheless affected by this vast project: if it goes ahead, it will mean more than 200 huge tankers a year will travel past our shores on their way to and from Kitimat. The tankers (far larger than any ship we normally see around here) will be loaded with heavy black oil on their way out to China.
The project can’t go ahead without federal government approval. Ottawa announced in January that it has established a three-member joint review panel to consider Northern Gateway. Public hearings will likely be part of the review process, which the company expects to be finished by the end of 2011.
The Council of the Haida Nation and other islanders like the Enbridge Awareness Group have already sounded the alarm about the risks posed to the islands’ beaches, marine life, birds, and humans. Experience in
Alaska and other places is that an oil spill has catastrophic and long-lasting effects.
Are there any benefits to the Enbridge proposal? We combed through the company’s website to find out. Enbridge says that construction of the pipeline will create 4,000 jobs over three years. The marine terminal at Kitimat will create some longer-term jobs. Additionally, Enbridge will set up a $5-million trust fund to benefit the communities along the pipeline route. ($5-million is less than the company pays its chief executive every year. And Haida Gwaii presumably would not benefit from this as we are not on the route.) And of course, it will mean new revenues for Enbridge and for the companies that want to use the pipeline so they can sell tar sands oil to Asia.
What are the chances that this project would result in an oil spill affecting Haida Gwaii? Hard to say, but are we willing to take this risk at all? One tanker is riskier than none, and 225 every year is a risk of a correspondingly greater magnitude. Whoever thought the Queen of the North could sink? BC Ferries had plenty of safety measures in effect, but in the end, it’s impossible to safeguard against human error.
So: the Enbridge proposal poses huge risks to Haida Gwaii, and has no apparent benefits for the islands. Every community should join the Council of the Haida Nation, the Enbridge Awareness Group and the Moresby Island Management Committee in opposing it.
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