The protest against the Kinder Morgan and Enbridge pipelines outside the federal building on Bay Street in Hamilton.
The Council of Canadians Hamilton chapter joined with 350 Hamilton to protest against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and the Enbridge Line 3 and Line 10 pipelines on December 1.
The Trans Mountain pipeline would be an 890,000 barrel per day pipeline, Line 3 a 760,000 barrel per day pipeline, and Line 10 a 73,000 barrel a day pipeline. All these pipelines have not received the consent of First Nations, cross numerous waterways, and would result in increased upstream and downstream carbon pollution.
Don McLean is a member of both the Hamilton chapter and 350 Hamilton.
CHML reports, “McLean says the approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline in B.C. and Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement project is very disappointing because it means that Canada will not be able to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets set at the Paris agreement. ‘We need two hundred mega-tonnes reduction, Kinder Morgan adds another one hundred and twenty-five to that total and Line 3, another eighty’ he laments. McLean believes these approvals could also prove indicative of the forthcoming National Energy Board decision on Enbridge’s proposal to replace and expand an existing pipeline that runs through Hamilton due to similarities with the approved Line 3.”
McLean says, “Line 10 hasn’t been promoted by Enbridge as an export pipeline pipeline, but in fact it goes to the United States and they are tripling the capacity.”
As noted on the Enbridge website, “Line 10 is a 143-kilometre export pipeline that carries oil from Enbridge’s Westover Terminal in Hamilton, Ontario to West Seneca, a suburb of Buffalo, New York. From there, the oil travels via the Kiantone Pipeline to Warren, Pennsylvania, where it is refined into gasoline, diesel, propane, butane, asphalt and other petroleum products.”
The pipeline basically runs south of the southern tip of Lake Huron, or more precisely across the Niagara River.
It has a capacity of about 73,000 barrels per day, but currently operates at about 63,000 bpd. Enbridge now wants to see a larger 20-inch pipeline replace about 35 kilometres of the current 12-inch pipeline that runs through Hamilton. According to the company, the pipeline moves heavy and light crude oil.
McLean says he expects the National Energy Board will approve the pipeline early next year. Enbridge wants to start construction on the pipeline in 2017 and to have it in service in early 2018. The Vancouver Sun reports, “Kinder Morgan continues to say it plans to begin construction in September 2017 with a completion date slated for late 2019.” The NEB website notes, “The targeted in-service date [for Line 3] is early 2019.”
The Council of Canadians supports the Leap Manifesto and the call for a 100 per cent clean energy economy by 2050.
