National Post (National Edition)
Battle pipeline
Many skeptics over Enbridge plan to reverse Line 9.
There w s time not so long go when the open houses Enbridge Inc. would host in loc l communities to expl in its pipeline projects were considered soci l events.
It w s ch nce to visit with your neighbours s well s n opportunity to eng ge big business, nd the l test gossip w s
s much p rt of it s technic l t lk bout structur ls fety.
during one such meeting in 2006, residents c me into the h ll, reviewed Enbridge m teri ls nd displ ys, sked questions nd then reminisced bout being children when the comp ny l id its first lines in the re . Then they pulled some t bles in the b ck of the room together nd everyone pl yed c rds the rest of the evening, munching on cookies nd slurping coffee.
Th tw s then. Tod y, Enbridge’s propos l to reverse the flow of its 639-kilometre Line 9 oil pipeline between S rni , Ont. nd Montre l
nd boost its c p city 25% to 300,000 b rrels per d yh s gener ted little resembling the cordi lity of old. Like Keystone XL nd Northern G tew y, this is more like b ttle. And the st kes for Ont ri ns nd Quebecers re high.
On one side re Enbridge nd its two m jor refinery customers, who rgue th t the economic need for the project boils down to providing more secure source of oil, Albert crude, for E stern Cnd t che per cost th n foreign imports. They estim te th t refineries lone will s ve $23-billion over the next 30 ye rs with the move, gu r
nteeing their future s suppliers to loc l oil users.
Without che per oil, they rgue, the refineries’ very surviv l would be thre tened. And without the refineries, Quebec would h ve no hope of processing wh tever loc lly drilled oil it eventu lly produces within its borders — from promising pl ys in the Anticosti region nd elsewhere.
On the other side st nd environment l ctivists such s Steven Guilbe ult of Equiterre, who rgues th t Enbridge h sl rgely f iled to provide det iled justific tion for the project nd questions whether loc l refineries re re lly under thre t.
Mr. Guilbe ult’s big picture view is th t Quebec should not be b cking the export of Albert crude bec use the province believes in fighting clim te ch nge nd th t effort would be undermined by opening the door to more production from the energyintensive oils nds. His soundbites re more person l. Enbridge, he repe ts whenever he’s sked, is responsible for the single biggest oil spill on North Americ n soil – the 2010 le k of more th n three million litres of oil into the K lm zoo river tM rsh ll, Mich. The comp ny estim the cle nup bill could re $1-billion.
Most of the other st keholders, including municip lities on the Line 9 right-of-w y, borigin l groups nd individu l citizens, re simply seeking re ssur nces there won’t be repe t of M rsh ll. And th t, more th n nything else, is Enbridge’s m jor ch llenge. How does comp ny bl sted by u.S. regul tor for its incompetent “Keystone Cops” response to th t spill now win over popul tion hyper-sensitized to risk only three ye rs l ter?
“Th t spill b sic lly shook us to the core s n org niz tion,” Enbridge’s he d of government
nd public ff irs, Glenn Herch k, s id in n interview this week. “It’s h rd to convince people to trust us now.”
Th t won’t stop the comp ny from trying, nd it re lizes th t ctions will m tter more th n words. Enbridge r n ultr sonic inspection tools through the entire length of the Line 9 pipe l st ye r, nd tes ch
That spill basically shook us to the core as an
organization
will do integrity digs to fix problem tic sections s needed. It insists th t if it is properly m int ined, pipeline c nl st forever.
Th t cl im doesn’ t sit well with m ny Quebecers. They’ve seen some stunning displ ys of infr structure f ilure in their province over the ye rs, including the 2006 coll pse of L v l’s Boulev rd de l Concorde overp ss, which crushed five people to de th. Their trust in engineers h s in some me sure been broken.
“Nothing l sts forever,” s id S inte-Anne-des-Pl ines m yor Guy Ch rbonne u, whose town is p id $40,000 per ye r worth of t xes to ccommod te
15-km stretch of the pipeline through its l rgely gricultur l l nds. “We h ve to sk ourselves wh t is best — tr nsporting petroleum through pipeline, with ships, or t nkers or tr ins. Which h s the biggest risk? Nobody h s nswered th t question for me.”
Over ll, both Enbridge nd the C n di n pipeline industry h ve commend ble s fety record over sever l dec
des, s id Philippe reicher, vice-president of extern l rel - tions for the C n di n Energy Pipeline Associ tion. But th t story is f iling to get out from sh dow of the M rsh ll spill.
“Bec use people re not re lly f mili r with the industry, they re b sic lly using very emblem tic nd very high-profile incident th t took pl ce on p rticul r line nd ssume th t this could be seen s systemic issue,” Mr. reicher s id. “It c nnot.”
S inte-Anne is lso pushing for more money from Enbridge, rguing the municip lity should be p id roy lties for hosting pipeline in the s me w y th t Quebec l nd owners
re compens ted for hosting wind turbine sites, telecommunic tion tr nsmission towers or oil nd g s drilling rigs. It lso w nts compens tion for the property t xes lost bec use development on the right-ofw y l nd is prohibited.
Ne rly 200 municip lities, individu ls nd groups h ve
pplied to the N tion l Energy Bo rd sking to be he rd
t speci l he rings on the Enbridge project scheduled for August. They r nge from the Industri l Associ tion of Montre lE st, group th t s ys the project “respects the b l nce th t must be est blished between the environment l, economic nd soci l
spects” under consider - tion, to C n di n folk singer S r hH rmer, who writes th t “B sed on the [diluted bitumen] spill in K lm zoo, Michig n in 2010 ( just one ex mple), the likelihood nd severity of h rm we would be exposed to is severe nd life thre tening.”
One Quebec town ne r the Ont rio border h s ccused Enbridge of trying to buy its support for the project by inviting it to pply for municip l don tion progr m. Me nwhile in Kingston, Ont., unknown individu ls imperson ted the comp ny this month, sending f ke notice to residents in t le st two neighbourhoods w rning them of “bre ch” on Line 9 ne r the city nd th t cle n-up crews were on site to stop oil from cont min ting the w ter system. The notice bore wh t ppe red to be the Enbridge logo nd w s ttributed to re l Enbridge employee, Ken H ll.
There w s no such bre ch. City police re investig ting.