The B.C. government bought itself more time on Monday to wait for pipeline politics to change, by trashing Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin the existing Trans Mountain line from Alberta to Burnaby.
B.C.’s final submission to the panel judging the merits of the new line is a litany of criticisms of the company’s proposal. But two things emerge from the lengthy outline. One is this statement: “The province supports bringing Canada’s oil to international markets.”
That means there are no objections to the general concept of getting Alberta’s bitumen to offshore markets. It’s the details of doing it through B.C. that they’re hung up on.
The second conclusion you can reach is all that safety objections raised by the government could be rectified. If Trans Mountain threw enough engineers at the problems, they could all recede in importance, as far as B.C. is concerned.
Such is the genius of the five conditions Premier Christy Clark set three years ago on pipeline projects. They are: regulatory approval, First Nations involvement and buy-in, world-class safety standards for both the line and the marine operations at its terminus, and a fair share of revenue to B.C. for assuming the risks.
Those benchmarks allow the B.C. government to monitor Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain’s proposals, without having to pass an unqualified judgment on them. It can pronounce on all the shortcomings, as it did with Northern Gateway, and still reserve the right to come onside later.
Apart from the volumes of technical issues, an oil pipeline through B.C. will always be primarily a political issue. And B.C. Liberals are keeping their options open when it comes to where they stand on pipelines. Pipelines are intensely unpopular now, and there will always be opposition on the coast. But it’s not necessarily insurmountable. Multibillion-dollar enterprises that create jobs by the thousands might someday look a lot more viable than they do now.
Environment Minister Mary Polak said the company has fallen short in describing how it would build the line, “but this does not close the door on them meeting that test in the future.”
The government’s submission suggests the company failed on only two of the five conditions. “Had Trans Mountain provided sufficient information to enable the province to conclude that it would have world-class marine and terrestrial spill prevention and response capability, then the province would have been in a position to support the issuance of a certificate. However, this is not the case.”
Provincial officials scrutinized every aspect of KM’s submissions to the National Energy Board and it took 36 pages to detail all their misgivings.
Some highlights:
• B.C. says the company hasn’t filed nearly enough information on the project. Some of filings are redacted out of security concerns that look bogus, since the information is available on U.S. websites. (It’s ironic to see the government of B.C. complaining about redactions, given the focus on its own response to freedom-of-information requests over the past year.)
• Valves limit the size of spills. B.C. wants more valves, but says Trans Mountain offered no proof why that is impractical.
The Trans Mountain design allows for spills of up to 4.6 million litres, when B.C. wants a limit of less than half that.
• Leak detection is crucial to safety, but B.C. said the company’s plan is substandard, and relies on the release becoming so big, it’s easily visible. “Beyond the prevention of leaks, Trans Mountain’s focus ought to be on their prompt discovery.”
• Instant shutdown is supposed to be the response to a leak, but B.C. doubts the pumps will shut down fast enough. They ran for a full week after a leak 10 years ago. After an alarm was triggered at a tank farm three years ago, there was no response for three hours.
B.C. has no confidence in the company’s emergency response.
Trans Mountain said Monday it’s still working on meeting the five conditions. It pointedly noted the pipeline would generate $46.7 billion in tax revenues over 20 years.
The Alberta government’s submission on Trans Mountain’s plan is expected today. Expect a different tone.
