Imperial Oil set to replace pipeline through Waterdown
The company has registered eight lobbyists at city hall to talk about the project with Hamilton politicians and bureaucrats
The project is described as ‘important infrastructure’ that provides jet fuel used at Pearson International Airport.
IMPERIAL OIL
WANTS to replace a 65-year-old diesel and jet fuel pipeline running through Waterdown — and it has registered eight lobbyists to talk to the city about the project.
The company, which is majorityowned by oil giant Exxon Mobil, operates the Sarnia Products Pipeline running from that southwestern Ontario border city to Toronto, via Waterdown and Burlington.
Imperial recently posted information online about a proposal to replace an aging 63-kilometre section of the pipeline between a rural Waterdown pumping station and a storage facility in Toronto. An environmentally sensitive half-kilometre replacement project under the Credit River in Mississauga is already underway.
The project timeline says Imperial is just beginning to do environmental assessments and seek government and Ontario Energy Board permissions for construction, which is slated for late 2019. Public information forums are not scheduled to begin until summer or fall.
But spokesperson Laura Bishop said via email Imperial is “committed to meaningful community, government and Indigenous engagement throughout the duration of the project” — which included a meeting with Waterdown Coun. Judi Partridge Thursday.
Since April, Imperial Oil has registered eight different lobbyists to Hamilton’s public registry that tracks interactions between business interests and elected city politicians or top bureaucrats.
The registry only indicated the
lobbyists intended to talk with Mayor Fred Eisenberger and Partridge about “ongoing maintenance programs related to pipelines.” As late as April 27, the company told The Spectator there was “nothing to report” on Hamilton-specific projects at that time.
Bishop said the large number of registered Imperial employees was meant to ensure subject experts were available to answer a wide variety of questions.
Partridge said she was assured Thursday the company has the necessary studies underway to eventually answer questions about potential project impacts on “environmentally sensitive” lands, endangered species and waterways in or near Hamilton.
The Ward 15 councillor said she was also heartened to hear the project is expected to hire local workers.
Bishop said most replacement work will happen “in close vicinity” to the existing pipeline, which runs along Concession 5 in Waterdown. The project will involve digging an open trench for a replacement pipe or, in more sensitive areas, drilling horizontally underground to create a new pipeline path. Once the new pipe is built, the old line will be cleaned out, filled with nitrogen and sealed.
It’s still unclear which process will be used to cross Grindstone Creek, which empties into Hamilton Harbour. Partridge said she was told the pipeline will go around nearby Lake Medad.
Don McLean, a co-ordinator with the Hamilton 350 climate change awareness group, said he wants to know if the replacement pipe will expand the line’s oil-carrying capacity, whether there are existing defects in the aging pipe and what “disruptions” are possible to residents and the environment, particularly near waterways or sensitive wetlands.
Bishop later clarified the replacement is a “same-for-same” 12-inch diameter pipe. She did not speak specifically to any test findings about the state of the pipeline, but called the project “part of a proactive maintenance program with the goal of continued safe operations of the line.”
Partridge said there are relatively few residents living near the line in Flamborough but at least one large greenhouse operation. (By contrast, the replacement
of Enbridge’s Line 10 had to loop around a Mount hope subdivision and three golf courses.)
McLean, a veteran pipeline watcher and climate change activist, also lamented what the replacement means “in the larger global context” of the push to cut dependence on fossil fuels. “A new pipeline really means a commitment to keep flowing that oil ... for decades.”
The project website calls the line “important infrastructure” that in particular provides a significant amount of the jet fuel used at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.
Pipeline politics in Hamilton and other cities are often fraught, with community concerns ranging from spill risks to the larger issue of climate change.
In recent years local pipeline issues have been limited to a series of Enbridge projects. Those include the contentious decision to reverse the flow of oil in Line 9 as well as the ongoing replacement, rerouting and now sale of parts of Line 10 through the city.
Those efforts have variously spurred protests, pipeline vandalism and city requests of the National Energy Board for more municipal consultation and guarantees of environmental protection.
Councillors will consider a new report next week outlining city concerns about the proposed sale by Enbridge of Line 10 to a U.S.-based oil company, United Refining Company.
Despite the often-controversial community response to those projects, Enbridge has never registered more than two lobbyists at city hall in any one year.