For the second time in two days Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been called on to suspend the regulatory review process for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project in British Columbia. Final hearings for the project begin next week.

“You are going to break your campaign promise to overhaul Canada environmental regulatory regime because of your refusal to suspend or cancel the reviews of the Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain pipeline and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline,” Cam Fenton, 350.org’s Canadian tarsands campaigner, said in a letter sent to Trudeau Wednesday.

“If you will not show the necessary leadership to stop these reviews, people will.”

Yesterday, Burnaby, B.C. Mayor Derek Corrigan made headlines with his letter to Trudeau requesting the review of the Trans Mountain project be suspended on the grounds the current federal regulatory framework is “deeply flawed” and “inadequate.”

Trudeau’s Liberals campaigned on restoring public faith in the National Energy Board (NEB), Canada’s pipeline regulator, during last year’s federal election. Under the previous federal government, the board went through extensive changes that resulted in limited public participation in regulatory hearings and restrictions on what public concerns were considered relevant to the process.  

The federal government insists it still plans on overhauling the NEB to ensure “robust oversight and thorough environmental assessments,” but pipeline projects like Trans Mountain and Energy East will continue to proceed under the ‘old rules’ established by the Harper government.

“….You are asking us to accept a broken, illegitimate pipeline review process," Fenton stated in his letter. "You are asking us to accept a process that ignores climate change, community voices and the rights of Indigenous peoples."

Adding to the frustration of the City of Burnaby, and groups like 350.org is a statement from Trudeau during a campaign stop in Esquimalt, B.C. last August where he claimed on camera the NEB overhaul would apply to “existing projects” currently under review like Trans Mountain.

“No, they’re not going to approve it in January. Because we’re going to change the government,” Trudeau told Kai Nagata from the Dogwood Initiative in response to questions about the Trans Mountain pipeline project. “And that process needs to be redone.”

Trudeau on Kinder Morgan

Justin Trudeau says if he's Prime Minister, Kinder Morgan will have to go back to the drawing board, saying "the process needs to be redone." Find out where candidates in your riding stand: http://votebc.ca/

Posted by Dogwood Initiative on Friday, August 21, 2015

Increasing public calls for immediate NEB reform could bring an end to Trudeau’s ‘honeymoon period,’ at least on the environment profile.

The Trudeau government’s performance in Paris at the UN climate summit in December far outshone any showing by the previous federal government. Trudeau has also pledged to meet with premiers to hammer out a national framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the next two months.  

Failing to quickly overhaul the National Energy Board could undermine the Trudeau government’s intentions of rebuilding the strained relationship with indigenous peoples in Canada.

The influential Assemblies of First Nations in Quebec and Labrador, Manitoba and British Columbia have all requested the Trudeau government cancel the current reviews of Trans Mountain, Energy East and the Line 3 pipeline.  

“Our First Nations in British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec call for the establishment of a new pipeline review and assessment process, to be developed and implemented in collaboration with First Nations, that will enable a thorough and objective environmental assessment of these pipelines,” a letter signed by all three assemblies states.

The 350.org letter is part request, part ultimatum. The organization says it will use a “People’s Injunction” if the reviews of Trans Mountain and Energy East are not cancelled or at least suspended by this Friday, January 15.

According to the group’s website, a People’s Injunction is a “plan to use creative, non-violent means to ensure that the Prime Minister and the new federal government keep their promises to overhaul pipeline reviews to include climate change and community voices.” 

You can click here to read more about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and climate change.

Image Credit: Mark Klotz via flickr

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Nine and a half years. That’s how long Stephen Harper was prime minister of Canada — a long haul for environmentalists, who were all but shut out of Ottawa and often antagonized by the federal government.

Now that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals have taken the helm, advocates have high hopes for a course correction on the environment and energy files. But after nearly a decade of working under hostile conditions, environmentalists need to make a course correction of their own if they want to effectively influence public policy, experts say.   

“If I was running a large ENGO and my file was climate, it’s a new day,” said Allan Northcott, vice-president of Max Bell Foundation, which runs the Public Policy Training Institute to train non-profit leaders in how to effectively advocate for policy changes.

“The opportunity is different, so it’s going to require a different plan, a different strategy.”

Many of the tactics advocacy groups undertake aren’t effective, Northcott told DeSmog Canada. 

“It ends up just being noise. And there’s lots of noise,” he said. “Right now, everybody and their dog and cat has got an idea for what the federal government should do.”

Outside Game and Inside Game Must Work Together

Many environmental groups have spent a decade building up their “outside game,” doing things like gathering petitions and organizing protests. But now that government is willing to meet with environmentalists, the door is opened to influencing elected leaders and public servants directly, through an “inside game.”

This new context requires a shift in strategy. Essentially, the outside game needs to morph to complement the development of an effective inside game.

“Just don’t assume that you can use the same set of tools. It is a bit of a specialized tool set,” Northcott said.

That’s why Max Bell Foundation created the Public Policy Training Institute. Faculty members include Jim Dinning, who served as an Alberta PC MLA for nine years and as a cabinet minister. Today, Dinning serves as a director on the board of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission.

“One of the things we teach in our class is that there are very few absolutes,” Dinning told DeSmog Canada. “Most elected people are willing — more than willing — to listen to a point of view that’s contrary to the one they hold. The ability to change your mind shows that you have one.”

'Protest is not a Dialogue. It's a Monologue'

The key to being heard is to start with a respectful, low-temperature, evidence-based conversation, Dinning said.

“A lot of people don’t think to do this, but the best place to start looking for a ‘yes’ is in the lowest levels of the public service that you can go to and get a ‘yes.’ The public service should play, and does play, a really important filtering and briefing role in advising ministers and deputy ministers and premiers and prime ministers,” he said.

Given that the chief of staff for Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is Marlo Raynolds, former executive director of environmental think tank the Pembina Institute, meeting with the public service should be a logical first step for many environmental groups.

However, skipping over the public service and going straight to a minister or Prime Minister is a common mistake.

“Public policy almost never happens in that way. If your first call is to the premier or the prime minister’s office, then it’s a bad call,” Dinning said.

As for protest, Dinning sees it as a tactic best reserved as a last resort if you’ve pursued dialogue with the government, but haven’t been able to make progress.

“It’s certainly not a first resort,” Dinning said. “A protest is not a dialogue. It’s a monologue.”

Environmentalists Eager to Keep Pressure On Elected Officials

Environmentalists, however, are chomping at the bit to hold the Liberals’ feet to the fire, especially with the UN climate negotiations coming up in Paris in December.

Clayton Thomas-Muller is the ‘Stop it at the Source’ campaigner with 350.org, the group that organized a protest called the ‘Climate Welcome,’ which involved four days of sit-ins outside Trudeau’s residence beginning on the first day he took office to demand a freeze on oilsands expansion.

Four days after organizing those protests, Thomas-Muller facilitated a United Nations climate event at the National Arts Centre, attended by the chief negotiator for Canada and the French ambassador.

“That’s the new landscape with a centrist party,” Thomas-Muller told DeSmog Canada. “Strategy and tactics have to reflect both pulling and pushing. It’s much more complex.”

Thomas-Muller said he’s full of hope based on the government’s first moves. “But we have to keep the bar where it is and raise it with intelligent multi-pronged approaches,” he said.

Politicians Must Balance Multiple Interests

It’s true that the early days of a new government are important.

“If you’re interested in federal policy change, right now — the first six or eight months in the mandate of a new government — is the best time to get in there and try to help inform what they’re going to do,” Northcott said.

But governments are faced with tough decisions about balancing multiple interests.

“Put yourself in the shoes of government, imagine where they’re at and what they’re trying to deal with at the moment,” Northcott said. “You’ve got to try to attach your issue to their agenda.”

With the public release of ministerial mandate letters, it’s easier than ever for groups to figure out what’s on the government’s agenda.

“You have to basically demonstrate that you have a pretty good knowledge of the issue. And not just the issue, but the issue in its context,” Northcott said.

“The presumption sometimes is that only ENGOs care about what happens in the enviro and energy space. And that’s just not real. That’s not politically real. You have to understand whose ox is going to get gored if your position becomes policy. You have to think about balancing out the different stakeholders in the policy ask.”

Dinning also stresses keeping in mind what any government minister has on their plate.

“Remember that a minister has 50 other files on their desk,” Dinning said. “And the file that you are talking to me about is one of 13 meetings I’m having this morning. Be mindful of that — especially with a new government.”

Great Expectations: Campaign Promises Vs. Reality

“You campaign in poetry and you govern in prose,” Dinning said. “The fact is, especially when you’re in opposition, you’re campaigning in a vacuum. You don’t know all the facts, there are a far greater number of layers of facts, of nuance: the world isn’t all black and white.”

That means sometimes after a government takes office, it learns new information that results in a campaign promise needing to be delayed or altered.

Further to that, Trudeau has promised to return to a “cabinet government” — in which policy decisions are made collectively, not just by the prime minister. If we want more of that open, collaborative approach to governing, we also need to be prepared to give politicians some leeway to change their minds.

As Don Lenihan of Canada 2020, a progressive think tank, wrote in a recent op-ed:

Back in the 1960s, cabinet government succeeded because ministers weren’t just selling an idea. They were trying to develop one. Public input and feedback were needed to get the policy right and the process was there to help them.

As a result, everyone was more open to seeing ideas change and evolve as the process unfolded. Decision-making came at the end of the process, not the beginning.

Nowadays, Lenihan writes, ministers who change policy proposals are often accused of “backtracking” or “flip-flopping,” which makes it tricky for politicians to really consider the best evidence on the table.

Politicians Follow Public Opinion

Ultimately, politicians are looking to advance policies that are broadly acceptable to voters.

“The window of acceptability moves and changes over time. Squarely in the middle are the things that become policy,” Northcott said. “Most governments try to get right in the centre of the window because they’re serving all voters … In a way, that’s kind of what you would expect from a democracy.”

That leads us to the work environmental advocates can do to actually shift what’s inside the window of acceptability. In Northcott’s mind, that type of public engagement work is an entirely different kettle of fish than advocating directly for policy change.

Changing public opinion is absolutely vital to creating social change and requires a long-term strategy built around shared values. Doing that type of work requires a very specialized skill set all of its own.

“Advocates sometimes look to politicians to lead public opinion. In my experience, most of the time, politicians follow public opinion, rather than lead it,” said Brenda Eaton, who served as deputy minister to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.  “Sometimes you need the outside game to change public opinion.”

While there’s room for a variety of tactics to be used to advance environmental issues in Ottawa, it’s vital that environmental groups differentiate between those meant to alter public opinion and those meant to influence elected leaders directly — and put themselves in elected leaders’ shoes when trying to do the latter.

On that note, fewer than three weeks into their tenure, the Liberals deserve a bit of time to settle in, Dinning argued.

“They’re still looking for the cafeteria,” he said. “The big decisions need time.”

Image: Protestors during a 2009 President Obama visit to Ottawa. Photo by Mikey G Ottawa via Flickr.

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By midnight March 3 the National Energy Board (NEB) received 1,801 applications from groups and individuals wishing to express their views on the proposed Energy East oil pipeline. At least 1,250 applicants indicated they want to comment on the impacts the west-to-east pipeline will have on climate change, according to environmental organization 350.org.

“I have applied to intervene at the NEB hearing to talk about the impact of the proposed pipeline on greenhouse gas emissions because I think that it’s outrageous that impacts of the pipeline on climate would be deliberately excluded from the assessment process,” Danny Harvey, professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto said in a statement.

The NEB, Canada’s federal pipeline regulator, has been clear it will not accept public comments on the climate impacts of TransCanada's Energy East pipeline. With the majority of applicants wanting to comment on this very issue, the NEB is now in a position where it may very well deny most applicants a voice in the regulatory review process.  

“This speaks to Canadians wanting to talk about climate change and tar sands expansion at the federal level. There is nowhere else to go to talk about this stuff with the federal government,” Cam Fenton, Canadian Tar Sands Organizer with 350.org, told DeSmog Canada.

350.org managed to track individuals wanting to comment on the climate impacts of Energy East through the organization’s website. The group estimates 1250 individuals intend to address climate change.

Energy East is the largest oil pipeline proposal in North America. If approved the 4,600-kilometer pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick would move 1.1 million barrels of oil and western Canadian oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen every day.

“You Can’t Ignore the Climate Impacts"

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with extracting, shipping and consuming 1.1 million barrels of crude daily is comparable to putting another seven million cars on the road, according to the Pembina Institute, an energy think tank.

“You can’t ignore the climate impacts like this without significant protest,” Fenton said.

The board plans on announcing this summer who will be permitted to participate in the regulatory process on Energy East. Due to restrictive rules on public participation introduced in federal omnibus budget bill C-38 in 2012, the NEB only permits Canadians the board believes are “directly affected” or have “relevant information or expertise” on a project to submit comments.

During the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oil pipeline regulatory process in British Columbia, the NEB received over two thousand applications to participate and of those four hundred and sixty-eight were rejected. Among were twenty-seven scientists and experts wanting to comment on the climate impacts of expanding Trans Mountain's capacity.

The Energy East process may have three times the amount of ‘rejectees’ if the board chooses to thrown out all applications from individuals and groups who expressed interest in commenting on climate change.

“A full accounting of economic costs and benefits must include external costs of production — in particular, the impact on existing economic activity, potential impacts due to spills, and impacts on human populations associated with climate change impacts,” Marc Lee, Senior Economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, stated in a press release.

Proposed Route of Energy East is Still Unclear

Although the month-long application period to apply to participate in the regulatory process on Energy East closed March 3, the NEB have may to reopen it sometime in the near future.

“If TransCanada were to make changes that result in additional individuals and groups being directly impacted by the project, the Board has procedural flexibility to address those matters, if and when they materialize. For example, we could re-open the application to participate process,” Katherine Murphy, spokesperson for the NEB, said in a statement.

The board has not determined yet if TransCanada's application is complete and contains all the necessary information for the regulatory process to move forward. Furthermore, Energy East’s proposed route is still in question.

TransCanada initially proposed the building of two marine oil tanker terminals, one in Quebec and another in New Brunswick, as part of the project. The site selected for Quebec — Cacouna — has been controversial for months. The port of Cacouna is adjacent to the breeding grounds of endangered belugas whales in the St. Lawrence Estuary.

Quebec media citing government sources reported last month TransCanada was abandoning its plans for Cacouna. TransCanada has denied the report and says it will make its final decision on Cacouna by the end of March.

Changing the proposed site of a terminal in Quebec or eliminating it entirely from the project would alter the routing of the 1,600 kilometers of new pipeline TransCanada plans on constructing through Quebec and New Brunswick. This could create a new group of Canadians who suddenly are “directly affected” or in position of “relevant information or expertise” on the project.

According to the changes the federal government made to the National Energy Board Act in 2012, the NEB only has fifteen months to make its recommendation on a pipeline project.   

But the clock does not start ticking on the allotted fifteen months until the board delivers its ‘hearing order,’ a document that spells out who has been approved to participate in the regulatory process and when and where public hearings will take place. The hearing order will be issued sometime this summer.

Image Credit: Pacific Wild

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The National Energy Board (NEB), Canada’s federal pipeline regulator, has come under tremendous public criticism over the last three years for limiting public participation in its review of major oil pipeline proposals. In recent years the board has denied hundreds of Canadians an opportunity to voice their concerns on projects like Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and Enbridge’s Line 9.

TransCanada’s Energy East, Canada’s largest proposed oil pipeline, is the newest project to land on the NEB’s desk. Despite major barriers to participation in the public hearing process, Canadians are preparing to apply in droves, even if just for the opportunity to be officially rejected from the process.

“We can’t sit back and we can’t afford the luxury of despair," Donna Sinclair of North Bay, Ontario said. "We need to resist efforts to shut us out of the process.”

Sinclair, who was denied the opportunity to submit a letter of comment regarding the Line 9 pipeline project in 2013, plans on applying to participate in the NEB review process for Energy East.

Why Participate in a Broken Process?

Despair about the process, especially for pipeline critics like Sinclair, is understandable enough. After recent changes to federal legislation the NEB now limits participation only to members of the public the board believes are “directly affected” or possess “relevant information or expertise” on a given project.

“The narrow restrictions on speech are completely anti-democratic,” Sinclair told DeSmog.

Canadians wishing to submit comments to the NEB on the 1.1 million barrels-a-day Energy East pipeline must complete the board’s ‘application to participate’ form by March. Completion of the form does not guarantee one’s participation in the NEB-run public hearing process.

What qualifies an individual as having the relevant level of expertise can at times be difficulty to ascertain. Last spring the NEB refused the application of 27 scientists and experts from B.C. universities who registered to participate in the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline hearings.

Over two thousand people and organizations applied to participate in the NEB Trans Mountain hearings. Four hundred and sixty-eight were rejected outright.

The approval of the contentious Northern Gateway pipeline, despite broad public opposition, worked to convince many British Columbians that the board’s only real authority resides in its ability to dictate approval conditions. The NEB subjected the Northern Gateway pipeline’s approval to a hefty total of 209 conditions. 

Further weakening the NEB’s authority, thanks to omnibus budget bill C-38, decisions by the board are now subject to federal cabinet approval, leaving what was previously a quasi-judicious and independent decision ultimately in the hands of politicians.

Even individuals from the energy industry are losing faith in the process. Last November, Mark Eliesen, a former energy executive with 40 years experience, publicly quit the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain public hearings, calling the NEB process "fraudulent" and a "public deception." Even B.C.'s environment minister Mark Polak said the province has had its "own issues with the process," which include the NEB defending Kinder Morgan's right to withhold critical information on things like spill response measures.

In this light, it is perhaps astonishing Canadians continue to apply en masse to be heard by the NEB on new proposed pipelines like Energy East.

So why does the public still try to elbow its way into a broken process which decides, ostensibly without their regard, the fate of new pipelines in Canada?

Hearings Drive Public Awareness, Opposition

“Participating in the NEB process helps to bring forward new information and keep the issue alive so that awareness and opposition grows,” Tzeporah Berman, legendary B.C. environmentalist and co-founder of ForestEthics, told DeSmog Canada.

“In the end the NEB may approve a project, but if you have approval without social license and are facing lawsuits, difficulty with provincial permits and massive protests, the barriers to development are pretty serious,” she said.

The Northern Gateway pipeline is a prime example.

Over one thousand five hundred Canadians presented oral statements against the pipeline to the NEB. Attempts to criticize pipeline opponents – most infamously in former Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver’s ‘foreign funded radicals’ letter – drove further support for the opposition movement.

Defend Our Coast Protest Against the Northern Gateway Pipeline in 2012.

The NEB ultimately approved the project, yet the hearing process generated a massive anti-pipeline coalition comprised of engineers, scientists, First Nations, municipalities, environmental organizations and a good portion of the general public.

Strong social pressure undoubtedly influenced the unprecedented 209 conditions the NEB eventually attached to the pipeline’s approval. Meeting every condition may actually be impossible for the project’s proponent, Enbridge.

The NEB’s conditions for Enbridge’s Line 9 project in Ontario and Quebec have similarly delayed the pipeline’s progress.

Public concern and criticism may not sway the NEB’s recommendation or the federal government’s decision on a project, but it is certainly leaving its mark in other ways.

The Public Forces Unique Pipeline Issues To the Surface

“Public participation in recent pipeline processes have brought forth some unique issues,” Tanya Nayler, staff lawyer with the Ecojustice, an environmental law advocacy group, said.

For example, the ongoing NEB review of Trans Mountain has triggered a full on debate on where municipal by-laws and rights stand in relation to the powers of the NEB (not to mention a showdown on Burnaby Mountain last year).

The question of dilbit or diluted bitumen’s behaviour in water was brought to the fore largely because of the Northern Gateway hearings. Subsequent federal reports confirmed the substance sinks when mixed with sediment although recently-released government documents show just how little is known about the effects of dilbit when spilled into water.

For existing pipelines like Energy East, involvement in the NEB process means information that might otherwise be kept from the public becomes a matter of record.

Through information requests, participants in the Enbridge Line 9 hearings gained access to disconcerting information about the condition of the 40-year pipeline. Information requests also revealed Enbridge had failed to assess what would happen in the event of a pipeline rupture.

“New information is essential to driving a public narrative about the risks associated with these projects,” Berman said. 

Three thousand kilometers of the proposed Energy East pipeline travelling through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario is comprised of an existing TransCanada natural gas pipeline. If approved that gas line will be converted to carry heavy crude and dilbit. One thousand six hundred kilometers of additional pipe will be constructed in Quebec and New Brunswick to extend the line to export terminals.

NEB Is the Only Venue Canada Has To Discussion National Energy Projects

Outside the NEB, Canada simply has no alternate venue where national issues connected to new pipelines can be discussed, leading participants to argue for much-needed structural change.

“Although I do agree the NEB has become slanted towards approvals, it is important to have the public participate in and challenge the process in order to highlight the problems in need of fixing,” Nayler said.

Of particular concern is the NEB’s refusal to consider the climate impacts of pipelines. From the outset, the board deemed climate impacts, and especially upstream emissions from the Alberta oilsands, as outside the purview of public hearings on the Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain and Energy East pipelines.

At 1.1 million barrels-a-day, Energy East would increase oilsands or tar sands production in Alberta by at least one third. The energy-intensive oilsands are Canada’s fastest growing source of GHG emissions.

Recently the U.S. EPA acknowledged the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Alberta oilsands crude to export facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, would be the climate equivalent of adding 5.7 million new passenger cars to the road.

“The NEB is the only place we can try and be heard. Every other level of climate and environmental legislation has been removed by the Conservatives,” Cam Fenton, tar sands campaigner for 350.org, said.

350.org has launched an online campaign encouraging the public to apply to take part in the NEB process on Energy East, but explicitly on the grounds of addressing climate change – a demand that is likely to have consequences.

It was precisely for wanting to address climate change that the NEB denied the 27 experts mentioned above participation in the Trans Mountain public hearing process.

“We are going to force the NEB to reject all these people. We need to hold the NEB and the process accountable for not allowing people to speak about climate change,” Fenton told DeSmog Canada.

Over the last year, 350.org has collected one hundred thousand signatures from Canadians wanting the board to consider climate change in its Energy East decision.

Last week representatives traveled to Calgary to physically hand the petition to the NEB.

Image Credit: Light Brigading via Flickr, LeadNow, Greenpeace, TransCanada 

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On July 6th, 2013, one year ago today, a train carrying oil derailed in the sleepy Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic, resulting in an explosion so wild and so hot it leveled several city blocks and incinerated the bodies of many of its 47 victims. The accident put the tiny town on the international media circuit and dragged a new social concern with it: oil trains.

Whether you call them oil trains, tanker trains or bomb trains, chances are you didn’t call them anything at all before this day last year.

Before the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, several smaller tanker train accidents across North America had already raised alarm over the danger of transporting oil and other fuels by rail in small communities with tracks often running through city centres and residential areas.

In the wake of Lac-Mégantic, however, critics, environmental organizations, journalists and concerned communities began tracking the growing movement of volatile oil shipments across the continent.

Keeping pace with oil transport

Overall shipments of oil by rail have increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009.

In 2012 nearly 40,000 barrels of oil were shipped to the U.S. each day, although surging oil production in the Bakken Shale has simultaneously led to an increase of oil by rail shipments of crude north of the border.

In 2013 oil train accidents resulted in more than 1.15 million gallons of spilled oil. This represents a 50-fold increase over the yearly average between 1975 and 2012.

According to some, the surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight. Lax oversight may have contributed to the devastation at Lac-Mégantic, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

In an October 2013 report, author Bruce Campbell, the CCPA’s executive director, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”

According to Transport Safety Board of Canada data, accidents involving dangerous goods have increased since last year.

Screen grab of TSB Canada data complied by CTV News. 

Poor tank design, poorer response plan

According to CN Rail chief executive Claude Monegau, poor tank car design was “one of the most important systematic issues” leading to the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. Earlier this year a Canadian government-commissioned rail safety group said more needed to be done to ensure the safety of oil tanker cars carrying crude through communities.

Since then the government has implemented a plan to upgrade or retire generic oil tanker cars, known as DOT-111s. In February there were roughly 228,000 DOT-111 cars in operation across North American and 92,000 of those were carrying flammable liquids.

Civil engineering expert and professor Roza Galvez-Cloutier, who examined the derailment in Lac-Mégantic, recently said no appropriate plans or equipment are in place to prevent a similar situation from recurring in Canada.

“There was an evident lack of preparation at all levels,” Galvez-Cloutier said recently in a Science Media Centre of Canada webinar reviewing the events at Lac-Mégantic. “Prevention measures, preparedness and emergency plans need to urgently be updated.”

“I think there was a panic and there was a lack of co-ordination,” she said.

At the time of the incident, firefighters were cooling oil tankers without having subdued the fire, Galvez-Cloutier recounted, adding the emergency response personnel did not know what the composition of the burning oil was.

Had they known, it’s likely they would have responded more appropriately to the fire, she said, using foam suppressants, for example.

“I know that Ultramar brought in, as a last resort, some foam to assist, but this was based on their goodwill, not a pre-planned emergency measure,” she said.

Grassroots groups respond

The increase in oil tanker accidents led a coalition of environmental organizations to create an ‘Oil by Rail Week of Action’ between July 6 and 13.

The coalition includes ForestEthics, Oil Change International, 350.org and the Sierra Club.

On Monday the groups plan to launch a ‘blast zone’ website which will make communities along oil tanker routes searchable by address.

Eddie Scher, spokesperson for ForestEthics, said the website brings together rail industry data and Google maps to make evacuations zones visible.

“It allows you to plug in your address and see where you sit in relation to this Google map blast zone,” Scher told DeSmog by phone.

“And what you find, which isn’t that surprising, is that these trains — mile long trains carrying 3 million gallons of oil — go right through the centre of almost very major city in U.S.”

“Our rail system was designed to carry goods, not carry hazardous materials through city centres,” he said.

Major cities including L.A., Oakland and Chicago have oil trains running through them.

The database, which is searchable for both U.S. and Canadian addresses, is designed to bring information about oil train transport to the public, something Scher says should already be available to the communities along rail transport lines.

“It’s pretty outrageous that we’re the ones to have to do this. We’re happy that emergency responders have this information but everyone should know what’s going on.”

“We’re working on the numbers right now, but it’s easy to say with the information we have that 10 of millions of Americans live in that blast zone,” he said.

“The amount of the populations that is threatened is huge. What we’re really trying to do is to let folks see what is going on.“

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board via flickr.

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Last week, 500 activists from 133 nations gathered in Istanbul to send a message for Canada to "Stop Tar Sands Destruction," as part of the Global Power Shift summit to mobilize against climate change.

Among the participants is Canadian activist Brigette DePape, who rose to prominence after being fired from her position as a Senate Page for holding a sign saying "Stop Harper!" in Senate. DePape said that she was amazed "to see a global movement rising to fight dirty energy around the planet, and to see that focused on the tar sands is incredible."

DePape added that they would be "bringing this message from the world back home and right to heart of the destruction next week." She emphasized that the message was already being spread at home as well, "with civil disobedience actions around Line 9 this week, and events like the Healing Walk to bring people together and start turning the tide away from dirty energy."

Nine of the activists chosen to participate in Global Power Shift are from Canada. The group includes First Nations organizers, young workers, climate and community activists, and artists. All will be involved in expanding the youth climate movement in Canada after the global summit.

"We are seeing an international climate movement committed to standing with those on the front line of tar sands extraction and those who are facing the brunt of the impacts of climate change sweeping the globe" said Suzanne Dhaliwal of the UK Tar Sands Network.  

The summit's global statement against tar sands development comes before the 4th Annual Healing Walk, taking place from July 5-6 in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The Healing Walk is intended to be a productive event, encouraging local community members to participate in finding solutions to the social, economic and environmental repercussions of tar sands development.

"We welcome everyone to the Healing Walk, and we really hope that those responsible for the destruction of the Tar Sands will come to see the destructive impacts first-hand," said Eriel Deranger, organizer of the Healing Walk, and a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

Planned by global grassroots organization 350.org, the Global Power Shift summit has taken two years of preparation to reach fruition. The event is proceeding despite, and in solidarity with, the current protests sparked by the Turkish government's plan to replace one of Istanbul's last green spaces, Taksim Gezi Park, with a shopping mall.

Joshua Kahn Russell, who helped create the summit's curriculum, writes for rabble.ca, that when "[we] envisioned convening this broad movement convergence two years ago, we never could have imagined that we would be holding this event in the midst of a popular uprising."

Russell adds that the coincidence feels "appropriate," as Global Power Shift is meant to trigger a "new phase of an international climate movement" that "disrupts the status quo and captures the public imagination…like the Taksim Square activists have done."

According to the Global Power Shift website, the "week-long summit will be a chance for us to refine skills, create personal bonds and community, share a global vision for change, and strategize how to organize different actions and similar summits back home."

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