The Council of Canadians Chilliwack chapter will be participating in two ‘happy hour’ gatherings in order to encourage people to make submissions to the National Energy Board calling for a significant route change for the 890,000 barrel per day Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline.
Chapter activist Suzy Coulter has shared promotion for the gatherings on the chapter’s email contact list: “Concerned about the proposed location of the Kinder Morgan Pipeline? The route is NOT finalized, and we can let the National Energy Board know that we want the pipeline moved away from Chilliwack’s schools, wetlands, fault lines, homes, and drinking water! We have until May 7th to do so.”
The chapter will be at two upcoming events:
April 28, 6-8 pm, ‘Move the Pipeline Happy Hour’ at Wilde Oscar’s
“Join us to fill out an NEB Statement of Opposition, then stay to have a beverage with folks in our community who care. The beer special for the night is ‘Bitumen Light’ (Molson Canadian); there is also a wide selection from Old Yale Brewing on tap! We’ll have forms, envelopes and stamps available to help with your submission, and can answer any questions you may have about the pipeline route or the opposition process.”
April 29, 3-5 pm, ‘Move the Pipeline Happy Hour Two’ at Tractorgrease Cafe
“Join us to fill out an NEB Statement of Opposition, then stay to have a beverage with folks in our community who care. The cafe will be hosting Songwriters Unite from 6-8 pm that evening so make an evening of it!!”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline in November 2016. The pipeline would carry diluted bitumen from the tar sands through Jasper National Park (where it has spilled six times), across the drinking water supply for the Coldwater Indian Band near Kamloops, across Chilliwack’s Sardis-Vedder aquifer, and into the Lower Mainland area to the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby for export on 400 supertankers a year.
Overall, the pipeline would cross 1309 water courses in Alberta and British Columbia. Notably, the bottled water giant Nestle extracts 265 million litres of water a year from a well in the Kawkawa watershed in Hope (about 50 kilomtres north-east of Chillliwack) in Sto:lo Territory. Our Chilliwack-based ally WaterWealth recently reported, “Nestle asked for and got a route change to move the new pipeline further from their wells. The old pipe may also get moved in that section. Chilliwack residents have been asking for the route to be moved off the aquifer we get our water from. Does Nestle have some pull that we don’t?”
Tree clearing and site preparation for the pipeline is expected to begin this September, while construction on the pipeline itself is scheduled to begin in January 2018.
The Council of Canadians is calling for a 100 per cent clean energy economy by 2050. The life span of the Trans Mountain pipeline could exceed that by decades.
The Council of Canadians has been opposing the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline since August 2011.
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