Tanker ban would deny Canada’s trading roots

[steven lloyd]

Tanker ban would deny Canada’s trading roots
Published: December 28, 2010 11:00 PM

When the ribbon of steel that connected Halifax to Vancouver was completed, the dream it delivered was not merely a railway between the far-flung communities that made up Canada; it was an essential link between our ports on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

This created a new path for Canadian trade between both Europe and Asia.

For decades, mail and freight destined for the Orient moved from London to Hong Kong through those Atlantic and Pacific ports. Canada was a maritime trading nation long before Confederation.

Canada’s West Coast has shipped lumber, coal, minerals and wheat from our various producers to Asia, safely and reliably for more than a century.

We also know how to properly regulate and manage tanker traffic as well as any nation in the world. Canadians have proven they can manage industry and protect both jobs and our environment.

Why would we then threaten that source of jobs and prosperity for tens of thousands of Canadians? That is what a group of environmental activists and some members of Parliament are demanding.

An opposition private member’s motion was presented to the House of Commons for its decision this week to block the development of the port of Kitimat, and a pipeline project to connect it to Canadian oil.

These activists and their political allies want to send a signal to every one of our trading partners in the booming Asia Pacific region: “Sorry, Canada is no longer open for any further Pacific trade.”

Banning tanker traffic on the West Coast – unless it comes through Vancouver – is absurd.

Oil tankers pass by Stanley Park under the Lions Gate Bridge now. The northern routes are wider, deeper and easier to navigate.

We can create good jobs and still protect our environment. And it will be done by incorporating world-class maritime and pipeline safety standards, strict regulations and best practices.

Canada is a trading nation, always has been, and expanded trade is our future. We cannot expect to further develop our already massive trade relations with the United States by any significant percentage – it is already a very large segment of each country’s trade, especially in the oil and gas sector.

We can, however, build on the long history of trade with Asia from our West Coast by building the port facilities, and new rail and pipeline connections to them.

Sir John A. Macdonald and the visionaries of the CPR would be astonished and appalled at the idea that some 21st-century politicians would slam the door on the most important trade routes and relationships in the world.

We need to keep Canada open for trade, and we need new gateways to Asia to do it.

Colin Kinsley was mayor of Prince George for 12 years and is chairman of the Northern Gateway Alliance. The alliance is an Enbridge-financed group that supports having the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal be fully studies by the federal National Energy Board before deciding if the $5 billion project should proceed or not.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/ter ... 92104.html

[steven lloyd]

posted previously on BC Board:

Oil pipeline route chosen with safety as a priority
Published: December 07, 2010 11:00 PM
Updated: December 08, 2010 6:12 AM

Enbridge Northern Gateway response to Ken Juniper’s Letter to the Editor (Pipeline Ruptures Inevitable)

Dear Sir:

In his recent letter to the editor, Mr. Ken Juniper raised several concerns in his letter in the Terrace Standard regarding the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines and referencing several slides and other natural hazards that have caused problems on the PNG pipeline in the segment from Telkwa Pass to Prince Rupert.

The slides and other natural hazards listed in the letter occurred along the Limonite Creek, Zymoetz River (Copper River) and Skeena River corridor west of the Telkwa Pass. This corridor has had a number of slides over the last several years and lateral river erosion has also posed challenges for the PNG Pipeline as Mr. Juniper notes. The PNG pipeline was constructed in 1968. Since that time, a great deal has been learned about natural hazards in BC and elsewhere. Those learnings have been employed by Northern Gateway to reduce the risk of damage to our pipelines from slides and other natural hazards.

Significant effort has been put into routing the Northern Gateway pipeline by geotechnical specialists with knowledge of the area. They utilize methods such as aerial and ground reconnaissance, use of aerial photos and tools such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), which was not available 40 years ago when the PNG pipeline was constructed. During the last 40 years, there have also been major advances in geotechnical engineering (the area of engineering that studies slides and natural hazards) and in the understanding and mitigation of natural hazards. Assessments of the natural hazards along the Northern Gateway route incorporated both on and off corridor hazards, including assessments of the possibility of the types of failures that have occurred along the corridor followed by the PNG pipeline. The natural hazards in these areas were considered by the Project team and in fact were critical in ruling out a route along the Limonite-Zymoetz-Skeena corridor because of the high exposure to natural hazards. In contrast, the selected route has a much lower exposure to natural hazards.

During the routing work for Northern Gateway, areas of sliding and other natural hazards that could pose integrity problems to the pipelines have been avoided wherever possible. Where natural hazards that cannot be avoided remain along the route, various mitigation methods will be used. Two tunnels, each about 6.5 km long, will be used to route the pipelines under the highest areas of the Coastal Mountains, thus avoiding this area of extreme terrain. Other mitigation measures will include deep burial under water courses where scour could occur, and the use concrete coatings and heavy wall pipe where additional protection measures over and above routing and deep burial measures are required.

The assessment and management of avalanche hazards will be an integral part of construction and operations. Initial work has identified existing avalanche slide paths and run out zones. The avalanche hazard management protocols used by the project during construction and operations will be under the direction of certified avalanche professionals, and similar to those used in the Terrace area by other agencies involved in managing worker and infrastructure safety in avalanche terrain.

The routing and mitigation proposed for the Northern Gateway route reflects the lessons learned from other pipelines operating in mountain environments, including those experienced by PNG. As a result of the work that has been done to date and the further work that will be done during detailed design, we are confident that both pipelines will have a much lower exposure to natural hazards than some of the older transportation corridors in the province.

Mr. Juniper also mentions that if a pipeline rupture were to occur, up to 12,000 barrels of oil could be released. It is important to remember that ruptures on new pipelines are extremely unlikely events.

National Energy Board statistics show that for all of the liquid pipelines that they regulate in Canada, no pipeline rupture has occurred on a pipeline constructed over the past 30 years. This is a result of the attention to design, material quality, construction and operations that is required of pipeline operators to ensure protection of the public and the environment. 12,000 barrels is described as the maximum volume that could be released, the reality is that in such an event as a rupture, the actual volume released could be substantially less. Typically historical ruptures have been much less than a full break.
The careful selection of remote valve locations allows operators to quickly isolate the pipeline flow.

Remotely operable valve locations have been chosen based on a number of criteria including topography, major streams and rivers, and other considerations. However, the valves are considered a last resort safety feature and considerable effort has been made to avoid areas of natural hazards that could pose problems to the pipelines.

Significant effort is applied in all phases of work to ensure a pipeline leak does not occur. However, as a responsible operator, Enbridge will ensure emergency response personnel, equipment and procedures are in place for a response to any release event. This includes developing specific plans for every sensitive watercourse and important environmental feature. These plans are developed jointly with key regulators, community organizations and Aboriginal communities. The Emergency Response plans must also receive regulatory review and approval prior to placing the pipelines in service.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind readers that a regulatory process has been established for the Northern Gateway Project. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the National Energy Board have formed a Joint Review Panel to conduct the environmental and regulatory review of the project, which may take up to two years. Impartial, public regulatory processes like the Joint Review Panel are the way Canada decides about important infrastructure projects like Northern Gateway.

Participating in the process is the best way for people to ensure their voices are heard and to learn the real facts about the project. The NEB's website link for the Northern Gateway application review process is http://www.gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca.

Sincerely,
Ray Doering
Manager of Engineering
Enbridge Northern Gateway Project

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/ter ... 62399.html

[bcpaul]

Does anyone know why the routes on my nice houseplant are rotting???

[steven lloyd]

Does anyone know why the routes on my nice houseplant are rotting???

Not enough oil.

[ILBT uh-huh]

A person would really have to study both sides of the equation and understand the risk/benefit ratio before they could offer an informed opinion on this one. Everything else is just hot air.

[flamingfingers]

I for one cannot embrace the ecofreak's concern over the "What If's". With what all has been learned vis a vis tanker safety, pipeline route safety, this I believe would be one case where infrastructure would be 'overbuilt" so massive lawsuits would not evolve. The economic benefits would be rather considerably more and last considerably longer than the massive output of taxpayer dollars for BC's 15 minutes of fame for the 2010 Owelympics.

Is this another case of 'having to pay for political favors' to get the government to start saying 'Yes"? Reference BC Rail for the answer...

[steven lloyd]

A person would really have to study both sides of the equation and understand the risk/benefit ratio before they could offer an informed opinion on this one.

That's why I've offered some sane and knowledgeable perspective to counter the ill-informed and hysterical enviro-scare tactics that threaten to completely and utterly destroy our economy. Worth a careful read and some critical consideration.

Gotta go

[ILBT uh-huh]

Thanks, sl!