NRB rejects environmental review for Gaslink pipeline

VANCOUVER The National Energy Board on Friday rejected a Smithers environmental consultant’s argument that the Coastal Gaslink pipeline should have been subjected to a federal environmental review.

Michael Sawyer of Smithers filed an application with the NEB in July 2018, challenging the jurisdiction of B.C.’S Environmental Assessment Office, which reviewed and, in 2014, approved Coastal Gaslink’s proposal for a 670-kilometre pipeline from B.C.’S northeast to Kitimat.

Though the pipeline would be entirely within B.C., Sawyer argued that it would functionally be integrated with Transcanada Corp.’s Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. system, making the Coastal Gaslink leg part of a federally regulated undertaking.

That question was the subject of an NEB hearing in May and Friday, the board “determined that the Coastal Gaslink pipeline project does not fall within its jurisdiction.”

“The project does not form a part of the Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. system and is not vital or integral to it or any other federally regulated pipeline,” the NEB said in a news release.

The Coastal Gaslink project, a 48-inch-diameter, 670-kilometre natural-gas pipeline, is a crucial link in the $40-billion LNG Canada liquefied natural gas development being led by Shell Canada that has been approved by regulators and received a final investment decision by investors last fall.

In its decision, the NEB found that, based on the evidence it heard, the Coastal Gaslink project “is properly regulated by the province of British Columbia.”