Critics of Enbridge’s Line 9 oil pipeline project are concerned the project will be approved despite insufficient evidence the 38-year old pipeline is safe. The National Energy Board – Canada’s independent energy regulator – is expected to deliver its final decision on Line 9 any day. Enbridge is applying to reverse and increase the flow of the aging pipeline to transport oilsands bitumen and Bakken shale oil to Eastern Canada.

“Enbridge should have to reapply for the pipeline. The safety of the pipeline is outside the scope of the Line 9 project’s application,” Darko Matovic, a fluid dynamics engineering professor at Queens University told DeSmog Canada in an interview.

Enbridge describes Line 9 as a project of “limited scope,” suggesting review of the Line 9 proposal be restricted to proposed construction at “the seven Project sites.” The project sites consist of six pipeline pumping stations and a new densitometer site.

Critics fear if the NEB takes this narrow view of the Line 9 proposal the current condition of the pipeline will not be properly assessed to ensure public safety. The pipeline lies in southern Ontario and southern Quebec where nearly one-in-three Canadians live.

“Enbridge cannot tell the NEB what the Board's parameters are when assessing a project,” says Rick Munroe energy analyst for the National Farmers Union and participant in the Line 9 hearings last October.

“The NEB has a mandate to make decisions which are in the public’s best interest and above all, to ensure public and environmental safety. The NEB's legal duty overrides Enbridge’s insistence on a limited scope,” Munroe told DeSmog from Kingston, Ontario.

Critics suggest changes proposed to Line 9 are not of a “limited scope." Enbridge applied to ship heavy crudes such as oilsands bitumen and Bakken shale oil through Line 9, reverse the pipeline to flow from Sarnia to Montreal, and increase the capacity from 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 300,000 bpd.

Matovic, who is also the president of the Ontario Pipeline Probe, argues Enbridge’s application for Line 9 does not adequately establish the pipeline can operate at the levels of pressure necessary to transport 300,000 bpd. He finds it alarming the pipeline company did not assess what would happen if Line 9 ruptured, especially given the known difficulties of cleaning up a bitumen spill.

Enbridge justified not assessing spills in its application stating, “scenarios concerning pipeline rupture events are not within the scope.”

Pipeline safety expert Richard Kuprewicz estimates the likelihood of Line 9 rupturing is “over 90%” if the National Energy Board approves the project without any conditions.

Ruptured pipeline from the Enbridge Line 6B which released more than 3 million litres of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010.

“I do not make the statement ‘high risk for a rupture’ lightly or often. There are serious problems with Line 9 that need to be addressed,” Kuprewicz told DeSmog Canada in an interview last October.

Extensive existing damage on the pipeline known as stress corrosion cracking and the larger pressure swings associated with shipping heavy crudes are the basis of Kuprewicz’s prediction for Line 9.

Enbridge for its part has not asked to increase the maximum operating pressure of Line 9. The pipeline has not operated at full capacity or pressure in recent years. Kuprewicz and Matovic both agree Line 9 needs to undergo a hydrostatic test to prove the pipeline can still do what it was approved to do nearly forty years ago.

A hydrostatic test would pump water through the pipeline at pressures above the line's maximum to ensure the pipeline can operate safely at full capacity. The NEB did order a hydrostatic test of Line 9 when the pipeline was reversed to flow from Montreal to Sarnia in 1997.

“The issues with Line 9 are too serious to ignore. No other pipeline in Canada is located in such a densely populated area. Ontario can only lose if Line 9 is approved,” says Matovic.

It will be up to the NEB to demand a hydrostatic test and more information on Line 9’s condition that goes beyond the limited scope of the project’s application.

Emily Ferguson, independent researcher and founder of the Line 9 Communities website, questions why the NEB is considering Enbridge’s application for the project at all.

“If the Line 9 project was a new pipeline being installed, the NEB would not even consider the application because some of its features do not meet present day engineering standards,” says Ferguson from Guelph, Ontario.

Line 9 meets pipeline manufacturing standards from 1971. The pipeline's quarter-inch walls and single layer PE-tape (polyethylene encasement) outer protective coating are no longer found on oil pipelines constructed today. Half-inch pipe walls have become standard for a thirty-inch pipelines segments, like those used in Line 9.

PE-tape’s tendency to become unglued, allowing moisture to corrode pipelines is a prolbem known to the pipeline industry. It was also identified as the cause of the Kalamazoo spill in Michigan, the largest onshore oil spill in US history.

“Why is the NEB even considering the application to use this outdated and faulty technology to ship oil through our communities?" Ferguson said.

Image credit: Enbridge, NTSB

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The risk of a Line 9 pipeline oil spill in Ontario or Quebec is “high” if Enbridge's proposal for Line 9 is implemented, says pipeline safety expert Richard Kuprewicz.  

Kuprewicz, who has forty years of experience in the energy industry, found that Enbridge's safety management system will not prevent a Line 9 rupture and described the pipeline company's leak detection system and emergency response plans as neither “adequate or appropriate.”  

“Enbridge has a culture where safety management seems not to be a critical part of their operation,” Kuprewicz wrote in the 31-page report released on August 5th. 

“This is the most damning indictment we’ve seen of Enbridge’s plan,” said Adam Scott of Environmental Defence in a statement. 

Enbridge's proposal is to reverse the 37-year old Line 9 pipeline to flow from Sarnia to Montreal and increase the capacity of Line 9 from 240,000 to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd). The company also wants to ship “heavy crude” such as bitumen from the Alberta tar sands through Line 9 for the first time.

“The Line 9 proposal should be rejected. Our communities, our drinking water and our shared environment shouldn’t be put at risk,” said Scott, who is based in Toronto.

Kuprewicz, who has held management positions in pipeline companies, stated there was a high risk of a rupture in the first few years of operations due to a combination of cracking and corrosion if Enbridge goes ahead with its proposal. The four hours it could take for Enbridge's emergency response teams to arrive on the scene of a Line 9 spill is, according to Kuprewicz, inadequate for highly populated cities along the pipeline's route, which include Toronto and Montreal.

“This evidence clearly shows what we have been saying for a long time. This project will put the health and the quality of the environment of our communities at risk both in Ontario and Quebec. In light of this, I cannot see how the NEB could approve this reckless project,” said Steven Guilbeault, Senior Director with Equiterre.

Line 9 passes through some of the most densely populated areas of Canada. The pipeline crosses every waterway flowing south to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. Line 9 is located within five kilometers of Lake Ontario.

DeSmog Canada revealed previously that Line 9 suffers from the same design deficiencies as the Enbridge pipeline at the centre of the largest onshore oil spill in US history; the 2010 spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Kuprewicz helped with investigations into the Line 6B Kalamazoo spill. He reports that, much like Line 6B, Line 9 exhibited extensive stress corrosion cracking (SCC), a type of pipeline cracking prevalent where external corrosion occurs. Line 9 is covered in the same outdated external protective coating called polyethylene tape (PE-tape) that became unglued from Line 6B, which allowed the pipe to corrode from the outside and eventually rupture.

Kuprewicz's report states that transporting dilbit through Line 9 will substantially increase the rates of cracking on the pipeline. Line 6B was carrying dilbit when it ruptured. The spill sent pollution as far as 50 kilometers down the Kalamazoo River.

The report is part of written evidence submitted by a coalition of environmental organizations to the National Energy Board (NEB). The coalition includes organizations such as Sierra Club, Greenpeace Quebec, Equiterre and Environmental Defence. The NEB is Canada's independent regulator of pipeline projects and is currently deliberating over the Line 9 project.

Two energy economics experts – Ian Goodman and Brigid Rowan – also provided a report as part of the coalition's written evidence.  The experts found Line 9's close proximity to highly populated areas such as Montreal and Toronto could result in major economic damage if the pipeline ruptured. The potential economic costs of a Line 9 rupture could outweigh the potential economic benefits of the pipeline, concluded Goodman and Rowan.

Line 9 public hearings are expected to take place in October. The earliest the NEB can make a final decision on Line 9 is January 2014.

Image Credit: Environmental Defence, Enbridge, EPA

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