Last week’s approval of the Line 9 pipeline project by the National Energy Board (NEB) hinges on thirty conditions being met by the pipeline’s operator, Enbridge. The conditions are meant to enhance the safety of the project that involves shipping 300,000 barrels of crude oil and oilsands bitumen everyday from Sarnia to Montreal. Critics of the project say the requirements are not “meaningful conditions” and do not protect communities living along the 38-year old pipeline.

"By giving the green light without actually imposing conditions, the NEB is complacent towards the oilsands industry and demonstrates its inability to protect [our] health, public safety and our environment," Sidney Ribaux, executive director of Équiterre, says of Line 9’s approval in a statement from Montreal.

“The NEB may pretend to have put adequate safeguards in place but it has only safeguarded the profits of pipeline companies and externalized the risks associated with pipelines onto landowners as the Board always does,” says Dave Core, president of the Canadian Association of Energy Pipeline Landowners Associations (CAEPLA).

The conditions largely require Enbridge to provide the NEB – Canada’s independent energy regulator – with the most recent information about the Line 9 project. This includes information regarding the current state of the pipeline, revised emergency response plans and the pipeline company’s updated pipeline leak detection system manual.

Why this information was not required before the NEB decided the Line 9 project was in “the public’s interest” has baffled critics. The difficulties of participating in the eighteen-month decision-making process frustrated participants who were unable to review and comment on the most recent and relevant information about the project.

“The decision and its conditions do not reflect the concerns raised by the public about Line 9 and shipping tar sands bitumen through their communities,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence Canada told DeSmog.

Public’s Concerns Absent from Decision

Scott points to a hydrostatic test of Line 9 as the one condition the governments of Ontario and Quebec, environmental groups, and landowners asked for, but the Board chose not to impose:

“The Board elects to make no order at this time regarding hydrotesting of the pre-existing portions of Line 9,” reads page 49 of the NEB’s 140-page document on the Line 9 decision.

A hydrostatic test or hydrotest involves flushing a pipeline with high-pressure water to determine if it can safely operate at maximum pressure.

Line 9 has not operated at its maximum pressure in recent years. Evidence submitted to the NEB by an international pipeline safety expert indicated the best way to ensure the existing cracks on Line 9 do not turn into a rupture is to conduct a hydrotest.

Protests London, Ontario against Line 9's approval 

“Enbridge needs to conduct a hydrostatic test on Line 9. It is the gold standard for pipeline integrity and safety. Canada has a well-established history of hydrotesting its pipelines,” Richard Kuprewicz, pipeline safety expert told DeSmog Canada in an interview last October.

The Board did not disagree with the argument for a hydrotest, but appears to have sided with Enbridge’s view the test could have “detrimental effects” or damage the pipeline. The decision to order a hydrotest was punted to a later time and date. 

Safety Tests to be 'Revisited'

“The Board has imposed Condition 11…[and]… may revisit the issue of requiring hydrotesting prior to granting LTO (leave-to-operate),” concludes the Board.

Before ordering a hydrotest the Board wants to review Enbridge’s approach to hydrotesting (Condition 11) and the company’s updated engineering assessment of Line 9’s state (Condition 9). The assessment must include a reliability study of the inline pipeline inspection tool Enbridge uses to evaluate the threat of cracks and corrosion to the line.

The engineering assessment Enbridge submitted during the Line 9 hearings is primarily based on the pipeline's condition ten years ago.

Two other conditions strongly recommended by critics of the project and the government of Ontario – a third party independent review of Enbridge’s data on Line 9 and the requirement of $1 billion in liability insurance in the event of a spill – were also absent from the Board’s conditions.

“There’s nothing of substance [in the conditions]. It’s pretty basic stuff that’s already required in legislation that already exists, like how you’re going to mitigate the damage you’re going to do to water crossings when you dig up a pipeline,” said Adam Scott of Environmental Defence in an interview with NOW Magazine.

Canadians Need To Determine Their Energy Future Outside of the NEB

“With these conditions, the Board is of the view that the IMP (integrity management plan) which Enbridge has implemented to date, and proposed steps going forward, sufficiently protect the facilities from cracking to enable safe operation of Line 9,” the NEB decision reads.

Although Line 9’s approval surprised no one, critics of the project held out hope for stronger conditions.

Dave Core, president of the Canadian Association of Energy Pipeline Landowners Associations (CAEPLA), has been dealing with pipelines, and the NEB for over twenty years and thinks Canadians need to rethink the regulator.

“Canadians need to realize the NEB is doing exactly what it was designed to do over sixty years ago – protect pipeline company shareholder profits and protect politicians from the public. The Board cannot be relied on to protect the public, the environment, or landowners’ rights,” says Core, who is originally a farmer from southwestern Ontario where Line 9 lies.

"We need to have a discussion about the future of the NEB and whether there even ought to be a future for the Board. It is only through ironclad contracts with the discipline of the courts and insurance that our safety, the environment and landowner stewardship responsibilities will be protected," Core told DeSmog Canada from Vancouver. 

The fate of Line 9 now depends on the NEB deciding whether Enbridge has met all imposed conditions on Line 9’s approval. Because Line 9 is an existing pipeline the project does not require approval from the federal government. 

Image Credit: Enbridge, Robert Cory

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“Line 9 was built at the wrong time with the wrong materials, and forms part of a pipeline system in which ruptures and leaks on very similar pipes have happened on a fairly regular basis,” stated Ontario Pipeline Landowners Association (OPLA) lawyer John Goudy in his final argument at the Line 9A hearing in London, Ontario in May 2012.

The 37-year old Line 9 pipeline runs from Sarnia to Montreal. The pipeline's operator – Enbridge – wants to increase the capacity of Line 9 from 250 000 barrels per day (bpd) to 300 000 bpd. Enbridge also wants to ship 'heavy crude' such as bitumen from the Alberta tar sands through Line 9.

Line 9 is almost identical in age and design to the Enbridge pipeline at the centre of the largest inland oil spill in US history – Line 6B of the Kalamazoo spill in Michigan. The 41-year old Line 6B pipeline ruptured in 2010, spilling over 800 000 gallons (3 million litres) of bitumen into the Kalamazoo River and the surrounding area. The cleanup is still going on and could cost up to one billion (US) dollars.  

“We are not anti-pipeline or anti-oil. We just want respect for our livelihoods and safe pipelines,” says Dave Core founding president of the Canadian Association of Energy Pipeline Landowner Associations (CAEPLA).

Design Deficiencies of Line 9

OPLA's argument against shipping bitumen through Line 9 is the pipeline suffers from “historical deficiencies”. Line 9 is covered in an outdated external protective coating called single-layer polyethylene tape (PE tape). A section of PE tape became unglued from Line 6B allowing water to corrode the pipe resulting Line 6B's rupture in 2010 according to the US National Transport and Saftey Board. 

The Canadian Energy Pipelines Association (CEPA), an industry group, warned in 2007 against the use of PE tape on new pipelines because it can stretch or become unglued from a pipeline, creating pockets of water that cause pipeline corrosion. CEPA concluded PE tape was ineffective in mitigating the effects of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) on pipelines.

Enbridge's Line 6B.

OPLA has also pointed out Line 9's pipe-wall thickness (6.35-7 mm) for most of its length is 30% thinner than a pipeline with the same diameter (762 mm) going into the ground today.  Enbridge’s engineering assessment admits this high diameter-to-pipe-thickness ratio makes Line 9 “susceptible” to mechanical damage. 

Line 6B of the Kalamazoo spill had the same pipe-wall thickness and diameter of Line 9. Enbridge is currently replacing Line 6B with a new pipeline with thicker walls and a lower diameter-to-pipe-thickness ratio.

There is no indication Line 9 will be replaced by a new pipeline.

Being a pipeline landowner in an expanding resource economy 

OPLA and CAEPLA represent the interests and rights of farmers and other rural landowners with oil and gas pipelines going through their property. The construction of Line 9 in 1975 sparked the pipeline landowner movement in Ontario. Two southwestern Ontario farmers mortgaged their farms to fight for compensation for soil degradation caused by Line 9's construction and won. One of the two farmers went on to found OPLA in 1993.

As the Canadian government pushes for more pipelines to be built to export bitumen, the rights of pipeline landowners are being reeled back.

Dave Core of CAEPLA told the Canadian Senate in a presentation earlier this year the 2012 omnibus bill C-38 introduced criminal penalties for landowners violating a contentious section of the National Energy Board Act; section 112. Depending on the conviction, the penalty for violations of section 112 is a $100 000 – $1 000 000 fine or up to 5 years in prison.  

Section 112 restricts landowners from driving their equipment over a buried pipeline on their own property without the permission of the pipeline's operator first. Land cultivation deeper than 30 centimetres within the pipeline's “safety zones” is not permitted. Safety zones can be as wide as thirty metres on either side of the pipeline's eighteen metre wide right-of-way. This effectively creates a 78-metre wide strip of land pipeline landowners cannot properly farm or utilize.

Landowners' disputes with pipeline companies can only be brought to the National Energy Board (NEB). Up until recently the NEB referred to itself as the partner of the energy industry, not the independent regulator it is mandated to be. Landowners have complained for years there is a 'revolving door' between the NEB and energy industry. The pipeline industry group CEPA's current president Brenda Kenny worked for the NEB from 1986 – 2001 .

“You get the feeling the NEB listens, but it does not really hear,” says Margaret Vance, president of OPLA.

“The NEB listens to landowners’ concerns because they have to, but they rarely do anything about them,” Vance told DeSmog. Vance is a farmer near Woodstock, Ontario.

Pipeline Companies Are Not Required to Remove Out-Of-Service Pipelines

One of OPLA's biggest concerns with Line 9 and other aging pipelines is pipeline companies are permitted to leave 80% of an out-of-service pipeline in the ground.  

“It is not safe and it is a liability for us,” says Vance.

OPLA unearthed an NEB discussion paper from 1985 on pipeline abandonment in the NEB archives while preparing for the Trailbreaker pipeline project hearings in 2007. The discussion paper stated pipeline companies should set aside funds for the removal of out-of-service pipelines. A fund was only recently established for partial removal of abandoned pipelines.

“The day the province (Ontario) wants abandoned pipelines out of the ground you can be sure it is not going to be the companies who profited from the pipelines who will have to pay for their removal. It is going to be landowners,” Vance told DeSmog.

Line 9 public hearings are expected to take place in October. The NEB could make its final decision on Line 9 as early as January 2014.

Image Credit: Environmental Defense

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