A Quebec citizen group is applauding a resolution by the Greater Montreal Area’s governing body asking the National Energy Board for a hydrostatic safety test of the Line 9 oil pipeline before it goes back into operation this summer.

“We would like to thank the CMM (Greater Montreal Area) and its president, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, as well as the numerous other elected bodies that have listened to the concerns of the public, and acted swiftly on this safety issue by adopting similar resolutions and forwarding them to the NEB,” Lorraine Caron, a spokesperson for the citizen group Les Citoyens au Courant, said.

The governing body, better known as the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal or Montreal Metropolitan Community, passed the resolution in a meeting on April 30. Line 9, a 39-year old Enbridge pipeline, runs through a densely populated corridor from Montreal, through Toronto and on to Sarnia in southwestern Ontario.

Citizen groups, and environmental organizations in Ontario and Quebec have been voicing concerns for over two years on whether Line 9 — the twin in age and design of the Enbridge pipeline that ruptured in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2010 — can operate safely at an increased capacity and while transporting oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen.

“We have been convinced by industry experts, including Richard Kuprewicz, U.S. expert on pipeline safety, that hydrostatic testing is the only way to guarantee the 639-kilometre pipeline can withstand the pressure it will be subjected to and the only way to find pinhole leaks and some types of stress corrosion cracking that could lead to rupture,” Katherine Massam of Les Citoyens au Courant stated in a press release.

Kuprewicz, who discussed Line 9 with DeSmog Canada on several occasions, believes without a hydrotest there is a 90 per cent probability the pipeline will rupture. The U.S.-based pipeline safety expert with over thirty years of experience found evidence of extensive stress corrosion cracking on the pipeline when examining Enbridge’s own documents on Line 9's condition.  

“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,” Kuprewicz told DeSmog Canada in a 2013 interview.

A hydrostatic test or hydrotest would pump water through Line 9 at similar pressures to those the pipeline is expected to operate at. The test could provide valuable information on whether Line 9 can operate safely at its proposed maximum pressure.

The NEB Can Order A Hydrotest of Line 9

When the National Energy Board (NEB), Canada’s federal pipeline regulator, approved Enbridge’s proposed changes to Line 9 — a 20 per cent increase in capacity, flow reversal, and the shipping of heavy crudes like bitumen — in March 2014, the board reserved the right to order a hydrotest if Enbridge’s updated Line 9 engineering assessment was deemed unsatisfactory.

So far, the NEB has chosen not to exercise this right.

“Our municipal officials have done their job by asking for these tests. Now we are expecting the Quebec government to do the same by following recommendations that CAPERN made in 2013, especially the one that pertains to carrying out hydrostatic tests to verify the pipeline,” Caron said. 

A committee commissioned by the Quebec government to investigate the Line 9 project in 2013 recommended Quebec request a hydrotest to ensure the pipeline would not fail.

During the Line 9 regulatory hearings in 2013, the province of Ontario also asked the NEB to conduct a hydrostatic test of the pipeline.   

Line 9 Approved, But Still Contested

Line 9 may have regulatory approval, but the project’s opponents in Ontario and Quebec certainly have not given up yet.

In a 29 – 2 decision, Toronto City Council passed a motion last April requesting the NEB not allow Enbridge to re-start Line 9 until the company installs automatic shut off valves on the pipeline at all major water crossings, the source of the city’s drinking water. Council deemed the valves necessary to halt the flow of oil through the pipeline in the event of a spill.

“This motion reflects increased resident pressure on the city to defend us all against environmental hazards,” Jessica Lyons, a member of the Toronto No Line 9 Network, said in a Toronto Media Co-op article.  

The Chippewas of the Thames, an Anishinaabe First Nation in southwestern Ontario, will appear in federal court this June to challenge Line 9 on the grounds the project violates their constitutionally protected aboriginal and treaty rights.  

“All eyes are on Energy East, but we are in the 9th inning with Line 9 right now,” Caron told DeSmog Canada.

“If Line 9 is allowed to transport tar sands oil it will set a bad precedent for all the other pipeline projects.”

Line 9 is expected to begin operating again at the end of June.

Image Credit: Oil Change International

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Public hearings on Enbridge’s proposal to ship tar sands bitumen through its 37-year old Line 9 pipeline begin on October 8th in Montreal. These hearings are the first to be held under ‘new rules’ on public participation in major pipeline decisions that last year’s controversial federal omnibus bill C-38 introduced.

Provisions in C-38 allow the National Energy Board (NEB) – Canada’s independent energy regulator – to deny Canadians their right to have their concerns and opinions considered by the NEB when it makes decisions on pipelines. Only those the NEB deemed “directly affected” by the Line 9 project were approved to participate in the hearings.

The NEB also set a strict list of Line 9 issues participants in the hearings are allowed to comment on. Issues connected to the Line 9 project such as the expansion of the Albertan tar sands, climate change and the rights and health of indigenous peoples of northern Alberta are all absent from this list and will not be addressed during the hearings.

In effect, the NEB has told Canadians what they can and cannot care about when it comes to pipelines like Line 9.

“The game’s been rigged,” says Gerry Dunn, co-founder of Stop Line 9 Toronto.

“The decision on Line 9 has already been made because the federal government wants tar sands pipelines to be constructed,” Dunn told DeSmog. Stop Line 9 Toronto is a citizens-initiative engaging residents of northern Toronto on Line 9. Line 9 goes through major urban centers such as Toronto and Montreal.

C-38 gives the federal cabinet power to override any decision made by the NEB on Line 9 or any other pipeline project in the future.

Line 9 is “High Risk” for a Rupture Says Expert

Line 9 runs from Sarnia, Ontario to Montreal, passing through the most densely populated parts of Canada. It crosses the St Lawrence River, and every major waterway flowing into Lake Ontario. The 831-km pipeline has never transported bitumen.

A pipeline safety expert last August slammed Enbridge’s plans for Line 9 saying the pipeline will be “high risk” for a rupture if the NEB approves the project. Line 9 has the same design deficiencies as Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline, which ruptured in Michigan in 2010 causing the largest inland oil spill in US history.

Line 6B was transporting bitumen when it burst. Enbridge is still cleaning up the spill.

1544 Participated in the Northern Gateway Hearings. Only 175 for Line 9.

Sadly, the new restrictive rules on public participation seem to have deterred Quebecers and Ontarians from taking part in the Line 9 hearings. This and the general lack of awareness around the Line 9 project resulted in the number of participants in the upcoming hearings being a mere fraction of the unprecedented levels of public participation in the Northern Gateway hearings.

The 10-page form the NEB required Canadians to complete in order to apply for permission-to-comment on Line 9 more than likely served as a further deterrent. British Columbians simply had to register themselves with the NEB to participate in the Northern Gateway hearings which ended last summer.

Sarah Harmer, Gord Downie & The Sadies, Hayden and the Minotaurs entertained over 1500 residents of Toronto on October 6th to raise awareness about the dangers of the Line 9 project. The event was organized in cooperation with Environmental Defence Canada 

The majority of the NEB approved applicants will not actually be participating in the eight days of Line 9 hearings split evenly between Montreal and Toronto. It appears either the NEB or the federal government is attempting to make public hearings themselves redundant.

No cross-examinations and no calling of expert witnesses will take place during the Line 9 hearings. There will be no oral statements such as 16-year old Sam Harrison’s insightful and compelling testimony against the Northern Gateway project that stole the spotlight last February.  

Only NEB approved “intervenors” – a role usually reserved for organizations, governments and companies – are allowed to present in the hearings and they can only present evidence already submitted to the NEB in written form.

Non-intervenors – the majority of participants in the case of Line 9 – were told they cannot make oral statements in the hearings and could only submit letters-of-comment.

“In my past experience the NEB gives more weight to evidence presented during the hearings as opposed to letters sent in by participants. We’ll see if this is the case with Line 9 as well,” says Margaret Vance, who as president of the Ontario Pipeline Landowners Association has been dealing with the NEB for over twenty years.

Public Has Lost Faith in the NEB process on Line 9

Rallies against Line 9 are planned for Montreal on October 10th and Toronto on October 19th, the last day of Line 9 hearings. The rallies will likely be expressions of the public's outrage and loss of faith in the NEB as legitimate venue for Canadians to voice their opinions about pipeline projects. 

Poster for Line 9 rally in Toronto on October 19th at the Metro Toronto Covention Center

“We are just going to keep on doing what we’ve been doing despite the NEB,” says Dunn of Stop Line 9 Toronto.

“We will continue to raise awareness about the dangers of transporting dilbit (diluted bitumen) through Toronto and work on the municipal council to ban dilbit shipments through the city,” Dunn told DeSmog Canada.

The Quebec government has promised to initiate their own review of the Line 9 project, although they still have not released the details. Ontarians are pushing their provincial government to conduct an independent environmental assessment of Line 9. There is a good chance if the NEB approves the Line 9 project the decision will be ignored by Ontarians and Quebecers.

Instead, the final verdict on Line 9 may come from the Ontario or Quebec governments or even the municipalities located along Line 9 who feel transporting bitumen through their communities is all risk and no gain.

The Line 9 hearings will take place from October 8 – 11th in Montreal and from October 16th – 19th in Toronto. The NEB could make its decision on Line 9 as early as January 2014.

Image Credit: Ecojustice, Enbridge, Environmental Defence Canada

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A five year battle against a key component of plans to pipe tar sands bitumen through Quebec and to the eastern United States quietly came to an end this summer.

In mid-July, Montreal Pipe Line Ltd., owned by Shell Oil, Suncor and Imperial Oil, withdrew its request with the Commission de protection du territoire agricole (the Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Land of Quebec, or CPTA) for permission to build a pumping station on 2.4 hectares of agricultural land in the eastern part of the province. The pumping station was crucial for plans to reverse the direction of the 378-kilometre-long Portland-Montreal Pipe Line (PMPL), in order to send oil from Montreal to the port city of Portland, Maine, for export.

The decision to withdraw the request has been met with cautious celebration by those who have been opposing the project since 2008.

“To our committee, this is a victory,” said Jean Binette, president of the Comité pour l'environnement de Dunham (the Dunham Committee for the Environment, or CED), in a telephone interview with DeSmog. “But we're not fooling ourselves – this is most likely simply a postponement,” until projects like Enbridge's reversal of Line 9B from Montreal to Sarnia or TransCanada's Energy East pipeline comes though, he said.

The plan to reverse the PMPL, which has a capacity of 600,000 barrels per day, to send oil south was originally in conjunction with Enbridge Oil Inc.'s expansive Trailbreaker pipeline project, that would have sent tar sands bitumen from Alberta to Portland, for eventual refinement and export. While that plan was initially put on hold in 2009 and cancelled completely in 2012, Montreal Pipe Line Ltd. had held steady to its pipeline reversal plan up until this summer.

But with Trailbreaker off the table (or renamed to make residents think it was), Enbridge's planned reversal of Line 9B a ways off, and TransCanada's Energy East plan still seeking approval from the Quebec government, there was no reason for the company to continue with the application.

According to the company, the decision to withdraw the request was a purely financial one. Montreal Pipe Line, Ltd. (which, together with Portland Pipe Line Corporation, makes up Portland Montreal Pipe Line, Ltd.) had maintained an option on the parcel of land where they planned to build the pumping station. That option was up for renewal, and it no longer made financial sense to maintain the option, so the company allowed it to lapse, said spokesperson Denis Boucher.

Without ownership of the land, a request for rezoning from agricultural to industrial became moot. The campaign against the pumping station had nothing to do with it, said Boucher. “The decision was based on our company, on our needs, and not having an active project. We decided not to move forward with the project,” he told DeSmog.

The link between financial concerns and opposition may not be so distinct, though.

“It's an economic decision because it's costing them too much” to not be pumping oil, said Cameron Fenton, director of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (CYCC) and a former member of Climate Justice Montreal. During his time in Montreal, he helped organize solidarity actions with the residents of Dunham, and continues to organize against the tar sands and pipeline expansions. “The longer you stall them, the more it costs them.”

And the pumping station project has been stalled for over five years.

If you had asked at the beginning, though, you would have never expected this outcome.

In 2009, it seemed like the battle to keep the pumping station off of undeveloped agricultural land in the heart of Quebec farming territory was over before it had really began. Following consultations in 2008, the CPTA released a 2009 report approving the change in the use of the land, allowing for the pumping station to be built. There was also little popular support in 2008 for the newly formed CED (Dunham Committee for the Environment), said Binette.

People didn't think it was a big issue – the pipeline was underground, what trouble could it cause? –  explained Binette.

But for a few, the worries about tar sands oil coming through a pipeline built in 1950 was too big a risk. Dunham resident Stéphane Durand filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec, alleging the CPTA had not done its due diligence in reviewing the project, and won. He also won an appeal by the company filed in the Court of Quebec.

Montreal Pipe Line was forced to resubmit their application to the CPTA in 2011. By then, it wasn't clear when oil would be coming from west to east. Two years later, despite growing pressure to move tar sands oil east, the pumping station is now off the table.

An integral part of keeping the fight going that long, said Binette, was the population of Dunham eventually coming around to their cause. Residents saw the 2010 Enbridge Line 6B leak that spilled over 830,000 gallons of tar sands bitumen into Michigan's Kalamazoo river, said Binette. The similarities between Kalamazoo and the eventual pipeline reversal in Dunham – both pipelines were built around 1950, and the Montreal Pipe Line would also carry the more abrasive (and more difficult to clean up) tar sands bitumen – made them realize this kind of accident could happen close to home.

South of the border, where the Kalamazoo spill has echoed even more strongly, organizers are expressing the same reserve as Binette.

“While the pulling of the plug for the building of the pumping station was welcome news to our ears, we are staying the course. Our campaign continues,” wrote 350 Maine's Sarah Lachance in an email to DeSmog. “We are well aware of the industry's determination to bring this poison to market and they are well aware of our determination to stop them.”

Despite the possibly fleeting nature of this win, the CYCC's Fenton said it is significant because it represents the first victory in the recent wave of protests against pipeline development and the expansion of the tar sands. The fight against the pumping station – and the pipeline reversal by extension – predates the battle against the Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and now Energy East. It shows that victories are possible, he said.

But, it could be a bumpy road ahead. With the Energy East and Line 9 reversal still on its way, Binette said that eventually Montreal could see 1.3 million barrels of oil come to the city per day. And with TransCanada talking about sending their oil to St. John, New Brunswick for refining, he said there's no doubt that eventually there could be enough oil coming through to re-invigorate the PMPL reversal and bring a new pumping station proposal.

“It buys us some time, but we're not going to ignore what's happening – we're following it closely,”  he said.

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Last week marked the third anniversary of the largest inland oil spill in US history. On July 25th, 2010 a 41-year old Enbridge pipeline in Michigan tore open spewing over three million litres of diluted tar sands bitumen or dilbit from Alberta into the Kalamazoo River and the surrounding area. Three years later the spill from the Enbridge pipeline known as Line 6B is still being cleaned up with the cost nearing one billion US dollars.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.