Masset Hearings and 4000 Reasons

The Terrace and Prince Rupert presentations have wrapped up and, this afternoon and tomorrow, the JRP is in Masset. Also tomorrow, we'll be gathering in Smithers for the 4000 Reasons Festival sponsored by the Driftwood Foundation to celebrate those who are speaking in defence of our communities.

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a history of Burns Lake by Pat Turkki published in 1973 - an amazing collection of people's stories. At the end, she quotes Herman Hesse:

For every man is not only himself, he is also the unique, particular. always significant and remarkable point where the phenomena of the world intersect once and for all and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal and sacred.

This is very much the spirit in which we put together the festival - to honour each person's story.

If you come in the afternoon (to the rotunda at Smithers Secondary  School), you'll also hear musicians and local poets reading their own work and work from The Enpipe Line: 70,000+ kms of poetry written in resistance to the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal. Admission to the afternoon is by donation; there's a $15 salmon BBQ at 5 pm and a gala concert in the evening (see link above for details). Price: $25.

The harlequin ducks are back on Driftwood Creek

We've been out looking for a couple of weeks now, wandering the edges of the creek, noting the rise and fall of the water, the muddy and nutrient foam tricking our eyes into seeing ducks bobbing in the back eddies.

 

This morning, just across from a small viewing platform in Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park, we saw the usual three: two males and a female. We stood high up on one bank of the creek; they hopped up onto rocks on the other side and we all had a good look at each other.

There's a fascinating Species at Risk Study that outlines their use of creeks for breeding - they tend to form long-term bonds and the females will take up to four years to reach reproductive maturity. Having clear, fast-flowing streams seems to be essential to their survival because they feed on the "invertebrates in the substrate" - i.e. all the little creatures wriggling around in creek gravel. Dippers eat from the same table. 

If you've read my submission to the Joint Review Panel (see Tuesday, April 24 - Congratulations to our community), you'll know why seeing these ducks this morning, and a dipper two days ago,  has such significance.They are markers of the ways in which home is both one specific and familiar place and also connected to the greater world in ways we barely comprehend.

Terrace hearings begin this evening

The oral statements begin this evening in Terrace - I encourage anyone who can to check them out - the statements in Smithers proved to be powerfully unifying for all of us concerned about this project.

Transcripts are available (see link on right), plus you can listen in. Bravo to all of you who have signed up and don't forget - you can still make a written presentation.


Order of Appearances for Oral Statements

Terrace, 7 May 2012 7:00pm – 9:00pm

�� Ken Beddie
�� Patrick Butler
�� Christopher Gee
�� Inke Giannelia
�� Aaron J. GreyCloud
�� Anne Hill
�� Greer Kaiser
�� Jupiter MacDonald
�� Roderick Bruce Meredith
�� Terry Walker

Terrace, 8 May 2012 9:00am – 12:00pm

�� Robin Austin
�� Matthew Beedle
�� Frances Birdsell
�� Rob Brown
�� Amanita Coosemans
�� Jim Culp
�� Ian Gordon
�� Bessie Haizimsqu
�� John How
�� John Jensen
�� Mikael Jensen
�� Brian Kean
�� Amy Klepetar
�� Lori Merrill
�� Andrena Moore
�� Dustin Quezada
�� Laszlo Ratkai
�� Sheree Ronasen
�� Roberta (Boby) Wagner
�� Allen Wootton

Terrace, 8 May 2012 1:00pm – 5:30pm

�� Judith Chrysler
�� Richard Clair
�� Mark Collins
�� Jezz Crosby
�� Francoise Godet
�� Paul Hanna
�� John Krisinger
�� Alexander Lautensach
�� Alan Lehmann
�� Larisa Tarwick
�� Jane Treweeke
�� Brenda V. Wesley

Terrace, 9 May 2012 9:00am – 12:00pm

�� Randall Rodger
�� Robert Hart
�� Andre Jean Carrel
�� Donald J. Bruce
�� Betty Geier
�� Paul Geier
�� Nada Last
�� Troy Peters
�� Cheri Reidy
�� Shekina Smart
�� Colette Stewart

Terrace, 9 May 2012 1:00pm – 5:30pm

�� David Duddy
�� Walter R. Fricke
�� Malcolm Graham
�� Sam Harling
�� Noel Reidy
�� Mia Reimers
�� Amy Spencer

Lynnda McDougall - This pipeline will be stopped!

Good morning.  Welcome back to Smithers.

My name is Lynnda McDougall.  I currently work at the Smithers Public Library, but since I moved to the Bulkley Valley in 1971 I've been a substitute high school teacher,  a bookkeeper and a business owner.  I spent 20 years of my career in resource-based industries, through both boom and bust times: first in forestry as a tree-planter, slasher/bucker and a stump to dump logging contractor, then in mining exploration as an office manager/bookkeeper for a diamond drilling firm.  For 8 years, I worked with First Nations  at the Dze L k'ant Friendship Centre.

Throughout this length of time,  and breadth of experience, I have never encountered an issue that has united and galvanized the people of the Pacific Northwest like the threat posed  to our livelihood and our very way of life by the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.

I am not a scientist, but you will be hearing from many of them, detailing the atrocious assault on our watersheds that a pipeline rupture, or worse yet, an oil tanker spill would deliver. 

I am not a scientist, but I am a mother and grandmother and a 41 year resident of this wonderful region and when I look at the map of the pipeline route , memories come flooding back – memories of activities and places I had assumed I would share with my grandchildren, now under threat of degradation and extinction:  camping, boating and trout fishing at Owen Lake – spill into the Morice? GONE!  Homesteading on the banks of the Bulkley River at Quick and Telkwa, drawing drinking water in buckets from the river, summer and winter;  swimming, tubing, rafting from Walcott to Quick – NOT IN

BITUMEN POLLUTED WATER!  Swimming lessons at Round Lake with my daughter NOT A CHANCE!  A family wedding on the beach at Grey Bay on Haida Gwai?  Black tar balls don't enhance white bridal gowns and deformed, toxic seafood doesn't provide a delicious wedding dinner.

I am not an expert, but I do recall a sudden storm in November of 1978 when hurricane force winds blew, and over 10 inches of rain fell on Terrace and area in 2 days.  The resulting floods  and mudslides devastated the entire NW:  44 washouts on HWY 16 between  Hazelton and Terrace alone, bridges gone; CN rail tracks, including a train with 2 crew members from Smithers, swept into the Skeena River;  over 6000 acres of timber blown down in the Chapman Lake area alone and the PNG natural gas line ruptured in the Telkwa Pass cutting off the primary heating source to Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert.

This incident is relevant today because it highlights the difficulties in trying to repair infrastructure in rugged terrain, in poor weather and with few transportation options. From Smithers to the west coast, we have ONE road and ONE rail line.  When these are impassable or compromised, the only alternative is aircraft.  Mountain flying is hazardous at the best of times and inclement weather simply makes it impossible.  

In 1978 PNG repair crews were delayed, first because of weather, and then by conditions as described by PNG's sales & service manager of the Terrace district, John Low, in a news story:

“Unless the service is restored Wednesday, the area will find itself without a major source of home heating. Low said the major break in the line occurs about 26 miles upriver from Copper River Bridge on Highway 16. Twelve men - as much as the site can hold - have been flown in by helicopter, and they face the task of building a four inch bypass line 200 feet up a 70 degree slope, across 1000 to 1500 feet on top of the ridge, and back down the slope. Machinery has no access to the area, and Low said the men are

doing all the work by hand. Two welding machines are the only equipment being used on the site.”

It took more than a week to restore natural gas service to tens of thousands of people,and a full two years to rebuild the roads, bridges and rails to the previous state.  

These are the conditions facing anyone trying to repair an oil pipeline leak, and then it won't be natural gas dissipating into the air, but heavy, toxic bitumen poisoning our waterways, killing our fish and destroying our environment.

We Northerners are a sceptical lot. 

We have seen the results of projects built by those who don't live here or understand the realities of our climate and geography:  the beautiful buildings designed by southern architects that are cold and draughty and leak, the mega projects that flood our farmland and dislocate our First Nations. 

We don't believe Enbridge's empty promises and smooth assurances – we've talked to the people affected by Enbridge's 2010 spill along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and heard about the slow initial response, subsequent denial of compensation, the reprehensible treatment of claimants and the continued ruination of sections of the river. 

We know that under Canadian law, the total liability to Enbridge for an oil tanker spill is a paltry $40 million – the BC taxpayer will be paying the rest of the billions required.

We don't believe the Harper government's argument that this project is in the national interest- at least not OUR nation.  China will make out very nicely! Greedy Oil producers, many of them foreign owned and controlled, will reap record profits to be shipped offshore along with the bitumen and Canadian jobs. 

The Harper government would have us believe we need the revenue generated by Northern Gateway to pay for our social programs, but we know that eliminating the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to already profitable oil companies would provide that funding. 

We are astonished anew, each day, as the Harper Government announces proposed changes to laws that will strip us of our environmental protection and regulatory review processes, including that of this very panel.  We urge, no we implore you, as the people of conscience we hope you to be, to join the people of Northern BC in condemning this project.

I am a Northerner, by choice and by temperament. Northerners can be fiercely proud, independent, resilient, responsible, rowdy and resourceful.  We have our differences and divisions, but in the face of a common and pervasive threat we will work together to defeat this project.  We love this country, it is our home, and we will protect it. We will become the radicals the Harper government accuses us of being: radically informed and radically involved. WE WILL STOP THIS PIPELINE!!

Kate Brooks - my children's questions

Good Morning. Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

The dinner table conversation at my house has been challenging in the last months as we have studied the proposed Gateway Pipeline Project and tried to figure out what it would mean to us to have a pipeline constructed so close to where we live.

My children are 13 and 10 and as a family my husband and I spent a lot of time with them reading articles in the press, following blogs, and watching videos and dvd’s on the proposal. We also spent time at the Enbridge website since much of the press has been pretty unfavourable.

As the statistics and reports added up….over 600 pipeline leaks in the past years with a particularly bad one in the Kalamazoo river in Michigan… my children’s questions began to pile up too…questions and statements for which we as parents had no answer…

“Most of the pipeline leaks are old pipes, Mom, so are they going to keep putting in new pipes on this pipeline, or will these ones get old and leak too?”

“Mom, the Queen of the North ferry hit a rock while making a simple turn and it sank and is still leaking oil. If the queen of the north made a mistake, a supertanker can make one too.”

“Yeah Dad, I watched Enbridge’s video on all the safety features they have in place but how much will that help? I bet BP and EXXON promised there would be no accidents when they set out their proposals and look what happened. “

“ But Mom, the Kalamazoo river cleanup is a mess. When the engineer at the Enbridge website says he doesn’t think there is going to be a problem, I think he is wrong. I don’t believe him.”

“So Dad, the bears need the salmon, and the trees need the bears eating the salmon, so what happens if a spill destroys the salmon? People are not the only ones with needs in the world, you know.”

“A leak is just one of the problems Mom…what about the construction? Won’t it have hazards too? What about avalanches and earthquakes? Won’t it create a big mess?

“Dad, if I was in charge, I wouldn’t let this pipeline be built.”

 “Mom, why are they sending the oil to China? We know there is going to be an oil crisis…I think they should save the oil for ME.”

My children are blessed to live surrounded by wild space. There is always something to be aware of here: The oolican are running, the salmon are running, the cranes are moving north, the geese are moving south, the loons are back, there is fresh bear poop on the path to the wild berry patch, the coyotes woke me up---they were so loud I thought they were in the driveway, the moose are in the driveway between us and the car and we need to get to town.

They appreciate the beauty and wildness here, the spaciousness, and the complexity, even while complaining all the way up the trail to the breath- taking view.

But they are now beginning to think that the only way to protect a place is to not let anyone in because as my 13 year old wrote in his school report--“The road to an oil spill is paved with any kind of intentions, good or bad, and while good intentions will certainly prevent a spill for awhile, it won’t forever. How would we feel if we were almost any animal on the pipeline route when a spill happened?….Do we really want the BC coast to become known as the Land of the Black water? Why is this happening?….To make money may be the clear answer, but our ecosystem is one of the most rare and precious on earth. We’re already harming it with fish farms and over fishing….Is money the only thing we need in the world? Do we need nothing to be proud of and protect?”

It became clear after reading this and listening to their discussions with us that the important issue for my children is to protect a landscape and home they love and take pride in.The important issue for me is safety I want my kids and family to be safe and healthy and one of the things I need for that is a clean environment.

We were drawn to looking at the safety record of Enbridge because my kids want to protect the environment for themselves and all creatures. I want them to be safe and healthy and in the end it really amounts to the same thing.

Perhaps because of their naivety and innocence, they see what so many cannot-- that money is not what truly sustains us….Wild land with wild creatures, clean air, soil and water and community….these are what truly keeps us alive. These are what feed us. No amount of money will ever clean up a disaster….that has been shown the world over. Despite the millions of dollars companies keep in the bank for that ‘just in case’ scenario…it never covers the true cost. Never. It takes lifetimes for the earth to heal.

Part of my reason for speaking today was to ask for your help in protecting a place that is worth protecting. It’s a healthy place and the risks of this project seem too great. The other reason is to show my children the importance of standing up, whether nervous or not ( and I am incredibly nervous), to ask for that help. You, as a panel and as individuals, have a huge responsibility, and opportunity and that is the power to weigh all the arguments.

I ask you to please listen to the wildness of this land, and everything and everyone that lives and thrives on it; Please go for a walk here and look at the big picture…. Please weigh our concerns in at least equal measure, if not more, to profit.

If we could, we’d like to pose one question. ”If Enbridge was told that the pipeline would be closed forever if there was even one leak, what would they do differently with their planning?"

Right now, we as a family have no confidence that Enbridge would be able to provide an acceptable answer, and until they can we ask you to please say No to the Enbridge pipeline proposal. 

Thank you.

Paul Glover - landslides

Oral presentation to NEB Joint Review Panel

April 24, 2012

Welcome Sheila, Hans, and Ken.  Thank you for coming here to hear us. We appreciate the opportunity to take part in the review process.

I understand that you’d rather not hear things that you’ve already heard from other presenters, so I will try to tell you some things you haven’t heard yet.

My name is Paul Glover.  I am 57 years old.  I’ve lived in the Bulkley Valley for 37 years, and have raised my three daughters here.  I plan to spend the rest of my life here.  I chose this area for its wild landscapes, its intact ecosystems, and clean water.  I have spent a lot of time in the mountains, forests, and along the streams and rivers throughout this region.  I greatly value that I can safely drink from any mountain stream…and I do. 

I know you’ve heard a lot about the instability of the land along the proposed pipeline’s route.  You’ve surely heard of the dozens of incidents where landslides in this region have cut powerlines, closed roads, blocked rivers, taken out railways (even pushing a freight train into the Skeena in 1978),…and severed pipelines. 

You know that we already have some pipelines in this area, that carry natural gas to the communities and industries across the region. And you’re no doubt aware that, since the time they were built in the late 1960s, these pipelines have fairly routinely been ruptured by landslides.  These include incidents where gas was cut off to communities for days at a time.

You have probably heard that in late November, 2003, the natural gas pipeline to Prince Rupert was washed out by a mudslide.  But I doubt that you’re familiar with the comments that Attorney General Rich Coleman delivered in the BC provincial legislature three days after the slide.

This is what he said:

“The landslide actually took place on Friday. It was about a thousand feet across — about 350 metres. It took out a natural gas pipeline. This is an event that takes place in this particular area of British Columbia about once every two to three years. There's a lot of unstable ground there, and it does cause some difficulties. The gas line was taken out.

“Over the weekend we were unable to actually get in there to repair the line, because the unstable ground was still there, and the weather was too severe for people to get in there. They are working on it now. They expect to try and get in there and finish this to get the gas line operating in the next three to five days.”

(From Hansard, Debates of the Legislative Assembly, MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2003, Afternoon Sitting, Volume 19, Number 5)

It turned out that Prince Rupert was actually without natural gas for 10 days.  That’s how difficult it can be to get in and fix a pipeline.

When the gas pipeline was being planned, if someone had said (as someone surely must have), “I am concerned that your gas pipeline will be hit by a landslide and break,” do you think that Pacific Northern Gas would have replied, “Well, yes, that might happen—there ARE a lot of landslides around there.”? 

NO, of course they would not say that.  Any company in that position will assert that the very latest and best technology is being used;  that thorough risk assessments have been done;  that the route has been carefully chosen;  that they can deal with any problems;  that they care about the environment more than anything else…and so on. 

They might even say, “We have lots of pipelines in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and they are NEVER hit by landslides!” 

A company does what it needs to to meet its objectives—which are, primarily, to make profits.  I have no doubt that this is Enbridge’s primary objective, too.  And I believe that Enbridge is overlooking the obvious risks of operating in this terrain, blinded as it is by the pot of gold it sees waiting at the end of the rainbow, in Kitimat. 

For this reason, I am not comforted by Enbridge’s reassurances of how its modern technology will make its pipeline safe through some of the most unstable terrain on earth.

You panel members might know Don Thompson, past president of the Oil Sands Producers Group.  You probably don’t know, though, that he was scheduled to speak to the Smithers Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 21 last fall about the benefits of tar-sands oil production.  We could expect that he would also have put in a few good words for the Northern Gateway pipeline.  But we actually don’t know what he would have said because he didn’t get to make his presentation.  He had to drive from Terrace to Smithers that morning, and the highway was blocked by a landslide.

This landslide was cleaned up within a couple days, but it came down the same path as a much larger one had in 2007, blocking the highway for days and burying two people in their vehicle, killing them.  If you have driven that stretch of road as you carry out your work during this review process, you will have passed the large pile of stones at the side of the road that is their memorial cairn.

There is no warning that one of these slides is about to occur, except that precipitation is often a factor—something we have lots of in the Coast Mountains. And almost all climate models predict increasingly warmer and wetter weather for this area:  More landslides can be expected.

Others have already brought up Enbridge’s pipeline spill into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, in the context of Enbridge’s record of 804 pipeline spills between 1999 and 2010.  “Most of them very small!” Enbridge hastens to clarify. 

But not the Kalamazoo spill, that the EPA estimates leaked more than a million gallons of Alberta crude into the river. 

But you already know this.  The point I want to make is that the spill occurred in flat country, easy to access, with many resources nearby to draw from.  Yet it has still proved to be much harder to clean up than Enbridge or the EPA anticipated.  By the time it is finally done to the satisfaction of the EPA, work will have been ongoing for more than two years straight. 

EPA on-scene coordinator Ralph Dollhopf says that Enbridge has struggled to locate all of the oil.  "Every time we go back to look, we find more," he is quoted as saying. "The river is causing the oil we are targeting to always move."

Please consider, Ken, Hans and Sheila, that our waterways are quite different than the easily navigable Kalamazoo.  If the river there is moving the oil around, imagine what our whitewater streams and rivers would do with it.

And what else do I take from this?  That Enbridge is quick to say how prepared they are in case there is a spill; how expert they are at cleaning one up.  But really, it’s clear they don’t have much of a handle on what’s involved.  No one does.  It’s a nearly impossible task.  If oil gets into our rivers, it will be there for a long time.  

And finally, you have certainly heard about the Enbridge pipeline outside Chicago that was ruptured, and burst into flames, when it was struck by a force of nature that is perhaps even more unpredictable than landslides:  that is, young men in cars.  In this case they were drag-racing on a closed road.  Most people don’t realize that this pipeline is buried for most of its length except for a 30 or 40-foot stretch that is above-ground.  And this is the part that happened to be hit.

What are the chances of that???  Quite slim, certainly.  Do you think this possibility ever crossed anyone’s mind during the risk assessment?   It is very difficult to factor unpredictable human actions into these assessments, and yet it is often just such actions that cause problems. 

My point here is that I take no comfort in a green-light risk assessment regarding oil pipeline infrastructure in an environment that WE KNOW is unpredictable and unstable.  We CAN confidently predict that there will be floods and landslides.  There may be earthquakes.  What else could possibly occur that we cannot even imagine as we contemplate this project from our homes and offices, our coffee shops and our community halls, our riverbanks and our ocean beaches?

Thank you.

Carlie Kearns - Houston Tsunamis

Good morning. I’m Carlie Kearns.

I moved to Houston with my husband in August 1974.

Our first outdoor adventures here were fishing trips along the Morice River. It is an amazingly beautiful, pristine, and powerful river! 

We’ve camped, canoed, boated, and fished most of the river from the Morice West Bridge to Barrett Station Bridge. We’ve caught Chinook, Pink, and Coho Salmon; Rainbow Trout, Steelhead, and Dolly Varden. We’ve seen abundant wildlife and birds along the river and picked berries and mushrooms nearby. It is idyllic! More people every year access this area for the fishing and the wilderness experience - locals as well as people from across Canada, the U.S., Asia, and Europe. 

This prime fish & animal habitat is downstream from where the proposed oil pipeline would parallel, then cross, the Morice River and parallel the Gosnel.

In the spring, when the Morice becomes a raging brown torrent, our explorations eventually took us to Babine Lake and Rainbow Alley – a world-renowned fly-fishing paradise. In the spring and summer fishermen congregate in Rainbow Alley and Nilkitkwa Lake to fish for rainbow trout.  As you know, this area is also at risk -- 80% of the Babine rainbow trout spawn in the Sutherland River downstream from the proposed pipeline crossing of that river.

We’ve also enjoyed fishing and boating in the Douglas Channel where I’ve seen whales, halibut, crab, rock cod, salmon, starfish, multitudes of birds, and vast beds of kelp.

The cycles of nature sustained by the rivers, lakes, and ocean are immense – waterways truly are the life blood of this province. 

I am horrified by the thought of an oil pipeline through this area and oil super tankers traversing within the confines of the Douglas Channel.

Oil spills are inevitable.    

Last June I wrote a letter to the Houston Today newspaper expressing my concerns about the risk of spills. The following week Mr. John Carruthers, President of Northern Gateway Pipelines, responded by stating in his letter to the editor: “Enbridge delivers almost a billion barrels of hydrocarbons a year through its pipeline system with a safety record of 99.99 percent”.

So they do NOT safely deliver almost 100,000 barrels per year at their current volumes? (1,000,000,000 x .01)  

The planned pipeline would carry an average of 525,000 barrels of bitumen per day. Using Mr. Carruthers’ statistics we could then expect total spills or leaks of almost 100,000 barrels somewhere along this line within 6 years. Hopefully his statistics are wrong and his letter was meant to be re-assuring – perhaps not - but at least he’s given us fair warning.

I am aware of two Enbridge crude oil spills in 2011:  28,000 barrels northeast of Peace River Alberta in May and 1,500 barrels from the Norman Wells line in the Northwest Territories in June.

There was also an Exxon Mobile rupture of a 12” pipe under the Yellowstone River spilling 1,000 barrels that resulted in the evacuation of residents, closure of water intakes, and the fouling of the river banks for almost 50 miles downstream.

The Norman Wells pipeline spill was discovered by Dene hunters – a pin-hole leak apparently – that wasn’t noticed by the Enbridge up-to-date monitoring technology. Most of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline traverses a remote wilderness and is under ice and snow for 4 months of the year. How much damage would a pine-hole leak or leaks cause along this line and how far would the oil travel before it was discovered?

At the Hearings here in January, Elsie Tiljoe spoke of her experience of being shaken out of bed when she was a child. She lived in the Houston area. That could have been the magnitude 8.1 earthquake centered in Haida Gwaii in 1949. 

I don’t know if tremors from the 9.2 magnitude March 1964 Alaska earthquake were felt in Houston but tsunamis from that quake caused damage in B.C., Oregon, & California.

The magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Alaska in November 2002 was also felt in the Houston area. An article written by Grace Hols and published in Houston Today states:

“Workers at the Equity mine site noticed a strange thing in the Main Zone pit the morning of Monday, November 4.   A boat that is normally tied up about a foot out of the water was adrift among slabs of ice in the pit. The last time they had seen the pit, it was frozen right over with a layer of ice four inches thick...You can see where a surge wave had come through and pushed the ice up, said Mike Aziz, operations manager at the Equity site. ...”

I have a photo of the tailings pond taken by Mike Aziz, Operations Manager, on November 4^th 2002, the day after the quake. The shoreline is littered with slabs of ice that were washed up by the mini tsunami.

 

The proposed pipeline would run within a few kilometers of Equity Mines.

The Natural Resources Canada website states that in an earthquake “The plates can either slide past one another, or they can collide, or they can diverge...The west coast of Canada is one of the few areas in the world where all three of these types of plate movements take place, resulting in significant earthquake activity.”  

I hope you verify this additional hazard.

I’d like to remind you of the Enbridge track record for spill clean-up.

Remember the Kalamazoo River spill of July 2010? 

I have a quote from a news release of October 6^th 2011.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a directive today requiring Enbridge to take additional steps to clean up the July 2010 oil spill that damaged over 36 miles of the Kalamazoo River system. The directive requires Enbridge to submit plans by Oct. 20, 2011 for cleanup and monitoring work expected to last through 2012. Failure to comply could result in civil penalties. The EPA directive lays out a performance-based framework for assessing and recovering submerged oil in the river and cleaning up oil-contaminated river banks.” 

The Kalamazoo river spill happened in July 2010. The US Environmental Protection Agency found it necessary to give Enbridge a clean-up directive over a year later and they expect the clean up to carry on throughout 2012 – 2 ½ years from the time of the rupture. 

Imagine how much irreparable damage has been done by this spill. Despite their up-to-date monitoring technology and clean-up strategies, 36 miles of the Kalamazoo River is damaged, eco-systems destroyed.

I hope you have data about the damage, costs, and clean-up efforts for the Kalamazoo, the Peace River and the Norman Wells spills.

I feel sickened that the Enbridge pipeline proposal is even being considered seriously and that it is being pushed by the Harper Government.

The risks to the B.C. Fisheries; the First Nations territories and culture; the tourist industry; the pristine wilderness; and the ecosystems all along the proposed pipeline route, the Douglas Channel, and the Pacific coastline, are not worth any amount of financial gain. 

The risks are clear. The benefits are not. 

Thank you for listening to the local people all along the line who are speaking out against this project. This is our home.

Sources:

Letter from John Carruthers in Houston Today (online) June 2011

Norman Wells spill:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/06/07/nwt-enbridge-pipeline-spill.html

Montana oil spill fouls Yellowstone River   The Associated Press  (online)

Peace Spill: cbc.ca/news (online)

Saved Letter about Kalamazoo and online EPA press release

Houston Today newspaper article November 2002 (Houston Public Library)

Natural Resources Canada website (online) (earthquakes data)

Photo of Equity Tailings Pond Taken by Mike Aziz Nov. 4/2002 (included & saved)