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So now we know that the federal government that slashed its own global warming monitoring division, is going to ensure the Environmental review of the pipeline project will get about the same amount of scrutiny as the omnibus crime bill. And he is warning the big bucked foreigners to stay away.
Odd, Mr. Harper didn't seem to mind when the Exclusive Brethren, a secretive anti-gay religious group from the USA spent thousands of dollars delivering leaflets in Canada in an attempt to stop same-sex marriage in June of 2005. I guess those foreign dollars are less green.
Oiled vegetation floats upstream of the Ceresco Dam |
Enbridge has had hundreds of spills from their pipelines, many which may have been preventable if the company had fixed problems identified by authorities. Two weeks before a huge break in one of its pipelines and facing many demands by authorities to fix defects in the pipeline, Enbridge asked the approval agency to allow it to simply reduce the flow of oil through the 'defective' lines. They never got a reply to that request, the pipe burst and sent 20,000 barrels of oil into the river. Picture this, laid end to end, 20,000 barrels would be over 14 miles long and would fill a two foot trench to the top the entire length. Let that oil get into a river or lake and you can see what damage it could do.
Enbridge pipeline leak into the Kalamazoo River July 2010 |
Back to the pipeline, the general public still doesn't know much about this project. Many people hear about a pipeline and think that's okay. They have yet to connect the dots on this. The raw oil product once it arrives in Kitimat BC will have to be pumped into super-sized oil tankers. The tankers then must get the oil sludge to California and or China. That means they have to travel along BC's coast.
Oil Tankers spilling their loads is not an if question, its a question of when. Just like pipelines and maintenance of those pipelines, oil tankers are all about accepting there will be a spill and the focus shifts to how one mitigates the damage.
Kitimat BC |
Any mistake along the way could contribute to a disaster. The question for BC and the rest of Canada is this, is it a risk we can accept? I suggest it isn't.
Prime Minister Harper has thrown out a 'green' herring, raising foreign money. It's clear he will accept nothing less than a speedy conclusion from the environmental review, that concludes with a green light for Enbridge's proposal.
1 comment:
I totally agree with you but what do I know - I am just a little old man living with his mother in Powell River. Wondering where everyone went.
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