Calgary-based author Chris Turner writes today in the Globe and Mail on the application by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. to the National Energy Board “for permission to snake a pair of oil pipelines 1,172 kilometres from the oil sands north of Edmonton to the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. Traversing the territories of more than 40 first nations, both pipelines would end at a new terminal in Kitimat, a small industrial town. One pipeline would carry Alberta-mined bitumen to Kitimat for international shipping; the other would deliver condensate (needed to make bitumen viscous enough to flow through pipelines) back to Alberta. Transporting the product out of Kitimat would generate oil-tanker traffic of unprecedented frequency and scale. Enbridge calls the project Northern Gateway…”
Turner also notes in his article that, “Alberta’s bitumen currently flows at the rate of 300,000 barrels a day down the Trans Mountain pipeline, operated by Texas-based Kinder Morgan, to the port of Vancouver. Northern Gateway would add 525,000 barrels and greatly expand the industry’s access to the new market most coveted by Alberta’s oil-sands industry, one not likely to greet it with a star-studded protest: The pipeline is, first and foremost, a gateway to China.”
He highlights, “To proponents, new pipelines are a matter of job creation and energy demand. To climate activists, the focus is on emissions and the long-term health of the planet. As (350.org founder Bill) McKibben wrote recently, ‘We’re fighting back against the rise of this new energy paradigm, and this is the clearest place to make the fight’.”
THE COUNCIL OF CANADIANS ‘MAKES THE FIGHT’ ON PIPELINES
In December 2007, we began to identify the various proposed pipelines (including the Alberta Clipper and Chinook pipelines) designed to move – and promote the expansion of – northern Alberta tar sands bitumen extraction. You can read more on that at http://canadians.org/integratethis/energy/2007/Dec-13-2.html.
1- We have actively opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, issuing numerous statements (including a joint statement of opposition with US-based Food and Water Watch) and attended the recent protests in Washington, DC, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10223.
2- We have spoken against the Northern Gateway pipeline with focused support of Indigenous opposition to this project, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10112.
3- We opposed the Trans Mountain pipeline at a recent rally in Vancouver, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10151.
4- We are beginning to raise concerns about a possible revival of the Trailbreaker pipeline, a proposed Alberta-Sarnia-Montreal-Portland pipeline, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10233.
5- And overall we are raising concerns about the likelihood of pipeline spills within the Great Lakes watershed, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=5650.
