Pipe dream doesn’t make sense for B. C. or environment

Re: Who decides Canada’s interest?, Opinion, Feb. 17

Spokesman Paul Stanway suggests we shouldn’t take the word of Enbridge regarding our concerns over environmental catastrophe.

He’s right. We should listen to the people of Michigan to see how Enbridge responded to a major pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River.

No amount of money can reverse the damage. But the taxpayer is on the hook for most of it.

Spills are just one of the many downsides. Like cigarettes, even when used as planned, the end result of more pipelines is more harm. Most of us know we need to burn less fossil fuel — not more.

We need to work toward reducing emissions, not building massive and risky infrastructure designed to increase them for decades to come.

Even if the PR machine at Enbridge is able to convince regulators that they can build a leak- proof pipeline and crash- proof tankers, they can’t deny that all that oil will be burned. RON VAN DER EERDEN Vancouver

Interesting to read Enbridge’s Paul Stanway dismiss opposition of the Northern Gateway project as “misleading rhetoric.”

B. C. is the largest intact temperate rainforest on this planet to which we all have a stewardship responsibility.

Concern over a 1,170- kilometre pipeline built on geographically challenging terrain prone to earthquakes, floods and slides, and crossing more than 700 fish- bearing rivers, does not stem from misleading rhetoric.

Concern over introducing tankers three times the size of a football field, and carrying up to a third more oil than the Exxon Valdez, to ply often perilous inside passages, wrought with extreme and unpredictable weather and fragile ecosystems, does not stem from misleading rhetoric.

The annual tax benefits of the pipelines amount to just $ 8.75 per person in B. C. The province would see just 560 long- term jobs.

These facts are straight from Enbridge’s website.

The pipelines would hurt refining jobs in Canada and risk ruining our coast, costing us thousands of jobs that are dependent on our coastal waters.

This project does not make any sense for B. C., either environmental or economic. BRUCE CUTAYNE Port Coquitlam