It’s the largest project in the history of Enbridge, itself the largest oil and gas pipeline company in North America. If completed as planned in mid-2019, it will boost oilsands export capacity by 375,000 barrels per day — over half of what the Trans Mountain Expansion will add.

But it’s likely you’ve never heard of Line 3.

“A lot of people don’t even know it exists,” said Laura Cameron, a community organizer with the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, in an interview with The Narwhal. “There just hasn’t been very much conversation around it.”

The Line 3 Replacement Program, or Line 3 for short, spans almost 1,700 kilometres and transports diluted bitumen from the oilsands from Hardisty, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin.

Due to the age and jeopardized quality of the existing pipeline, capacity of Line 3 has been cut in half. Installing a new and slightly wider pipe means that the company can return it to original levels.

In an era of hotly contested oilsands pipelines, Line 3 hasn’t received much attention.

“They wanted this one to happen quietly and under the radar,” said Adam Scott, senior advisor at Oil Change International, in an interview with The Narwhal.

The Line 3 replacement project: what you need to know

On the Canadian side, Line 3 runs from near Edmonton to the Manitoban bordertown of Gretna, crossing Saskatchewan near Regina on the way.

Once it crosses the 49th parallel, the pipeline travels through the upper northeast corner of North Dakota before charging through 542 kilometres of Minnesota and concluding at the mouth of Lake Superior in Wisconsin.

From there, oil can be transported to refineries across the continent.

The new project requires the installation of 18 new pump stations and three new storage terminals in Alberta.

Line 3 was given the go-ahead by the federal government in late November 2016, at the same time Trans Mountain was approved and after the plug was pulled on Enbridge’s beleaguered Northern Gateway pipeline.

The project passed the final major regulatory hurdle in June after being approved by Minnesota’s Public Utilities Board after a lengthy delay.

The existing pipeline will be decommissioned and left in the ground. This concerns many who argue that it could represent an environmental liability for decades to come.

Cameron of the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition said the abandoned line “has the potential to damage local environments through metal deteriorating and making farmland pretty unstable.”

In an e-mail, Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner wrote: “Enbridge will continue to monitor the deactivated pipeline and maintain the right-of-way. Independent engineering research and analysis have determined that deactivated pipelines with adequate cover will have a very long life as load-bearing structures, even after decades of deactivation. Environmental regulatory requirements prohibit altering current hydrology. Therefore, the Line 3 deactivation process will protect water resources to ensure that the deactivated pipeline will not drain any fields, lakes, rivers, streams or other wetland areas.”

Concerns over Enbridge pipeline safety

In 2010, Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline spilled more than 20,000 barrels of diluted bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

As part of the subsequent settlement with the federal government, the pipeline company was required to replace the U.S. portion of Line 3 by the end of 2017, pending state approvals.

That hasn’t been a simple process.

In early 2017, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs filed a court challenge to stop the pipeline.

Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke and her organization Honor the Earth have led the charge in Minnesota against its construction, which will transport diluted bitumen from the Alberta oilsands along a new route through ancestral wild rice fields and waterways.

Because of the Kalamazoo spill — which has cost more than $1 billion to clean up — many eyes in Minnesota are on the newly proposed project.

Line 3 has also seen a series of spills over the years.

In 1991, Line 3 spilled 40,000 barrels near Grand Rapids. In 1999, the pipeline spilled 20,000 barrels of heavy crude near Regina. In 2007, two workers in Minnesota were killed in an explosion while attempting to repair the pipeline. Such fears are compounded by multiple spills on the nearby TransCanada Keystone pipeline. And earlier this month, an Enbridge pipeline transporting natural gas exploded near Prince George, requiring evacuations and residents to reduce gas consumption.

“The idea of cleanup is always overstated,” Scott said. “It’s not technically possible in a lot of cases. You’ll end up with toxic bitumen getting into aquifers and sediment, and the impacts can be generational.”

Pipeline emissions

There are also major concerns about long-term carbon lock-in effects. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published its latest report which warned of catastrophic impacts if the world fails to slash emissions by 2030.

Given the high costs for the pipeline, Enbridge will be very motivated to ship as much oil as possible for as long as possible.

Scott said that itself will incentivize new upstream production, such as Teck’s proposed Frontier mine — which will emit at least four megatonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

By offering lower cost shipping for the foreseeable future, marginal oilsands projects are made more economical.

Why haven’t I heard of this thing before?

Patrick McCurdy, professor of communication at the University of Ottawa and expert in oilsands advertising, noted in an interview with The Narwhal that Line 3 doesn’t pass through many dense urban centres. That’s compared to Trans Mountain, which has faced its greatest opposition in Burnaby and Vancouver.

“Media requires novelty or numbers, and neither of those boxes have been ticked,” McCurdy said.

Shane Gunster, associate professor in communication at Simon Fraser University, told The Narwhal that independent online media outlets in B.C. helped popularize knowledge of both Trans Mountain and Northern Gateway — which in turn forced traditional media outlets such as the Vancouver Sun to pay attention.

Gunster said Line 3 also lacks “charismatic species” like orcas to capture public attention.

“I hate to say it, but I think people just aren’t as concerned about prairies and wetlands as they are about the ocean and coastal environments,” he said.

Another factor is the clever rhetorical construction by Enbridge. Unlike Trans Mountain, which is explicitly named as an expansion, Line 3 has been portrayed as a means of preventing leaks: replacing an old rusty pipe with a new and improved version.

“Enbridge has done a really good job in billing this as a replacement project,” said Cameron of the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition. “They’ve constructed this narrative that it’s just replacing the existing pipeline which is aging, and it’s just sort of a routine maintenance project. That’s been a big part of the fact that people have just accepted it as common practice and necessary.”

So how close is Line 3 to completion?

Enbridge is banking on an in-service date by the second half of 2019.

Cameron of the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition said the pipeline is being constructed right now in Manitoba, with other portions already completed in Saskatchewan and the U.S.

But resistance continues to mount.

In July, the Spirit of the Buffalo prayer camp launched near Gretna, Manitoba. Meanwhile, in late September, a group of Indigenous land defenders and allies named Great Plains Resistance stopped construction for a day near Morden, Manitoba. A collective of Indigenous and environmental organizations also requested a reconsideration of the Line 3 approval by Minnesota’s Public Utilities Board.

Gunster of Simon Fraser University said that while Line 3 hasn’t received much public attention, that could quickly change, as it did for the Dakota Access Pipeline in light of Standing Rock.

So stay tuned — this may be the first but probably won’t be the last you hear of the Line 3 pipeline.

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.

If you ask biologist Misty MacDuffee what is responsible for the plight of the West Coast’s iconic southern resident killer whale populations, she’ll narrow it down to two major factors: not enough salmon and too much noise.

The one-two punch of declining Chinook stocks and loud, bustling ports and shipping routes in the Salish Sea are the crux issues for the endangered species, MacDuffee told The Narwhal. And that’s without even mentioning toxic contamination that bioaccumulates in the blubber of orcas, which starving orcas metabolize, leaving them invisibly poisoned.

It’s also before introducing the issue of the embattled Trans Mountain pipeline that would introduce the further risks of oil spills and increased ship strikes into the mix as well as the additional underwater racket — known as “acoustic smog” — that would result from the project’s seven-fold increase in oil tanker traffic.

The Trans Mountain pipeline project would triple the amount of oil shipped from Alberta to export terminals in Burnaby, B.C., and result in a jump from five to 34 tankers traversing the Burrard Inlet and Salish Sea each month.

Lummi Nation vessel (top) releases live fish ahead of J50 during feeding trials near San Juan Island on Aug. 12, 2018. Biologists in an orange NOAA Fisheries vessel follow. Photo: John Gussman / NOAA Fisheries, under permit 18786 via Flickr

The fatal exclusion

“We’ve done a population viability analysis that found the conditions in the Salish Sea cannot get any worse if we hope to recover these whales,” said MacDuffee, a scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, one of the organizations that successfully challenged the National Energy Board’s review of, and the federal government’s subsequent approval of, the Trans Mountain pipeline.

“That’s exactly what Trans Mountain would do: it would make the conditions in the Salish Sea worse.”

Only 75 individuals remain in the southern resident population. Low birth rates and calf mortality became a subject of renewed attention this summer after a newborn died and was carried by her mother for 17 days in what experts have described as a display of grief.

During the review stage of Trans Mountain the National Energy Board (NEB) excluded the marine shipping element from consideration of the project’s environmental impacts.

The exclusion was a fatal one: alongside the federal government’s failure to adequately consult First Nations it ultimately led Canada’s Federal Appeals Court to rule the project’s review was irredeemably flawed.

The court declared the project quashed in an unforgiving decision, delivered by Justice Eleanor Dawson:

“This finding — that the Project was not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects — was central to its report. The unjustified failure to assess the effects of Project-related shipping under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 and the resulting flawed conclusion about the environmental effects of the Project was critical to the decision of the Governor in Council [cabinet]. With such a flawed report before it, the Governor in Council could not legally make the kind of assessment of the Project’s environmental effects and the public interest that the legislation requires.”

“The NEB made one fatal error which they compounded over time as they deliberated and as this went to cabinet,” Chris Tollefson, lawyer with the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation, said.

“It undermined the whole exercise because that was a fundamental question they were bound to assess, they were bound to make a recommendation on,” he said.

Had the NEB considered that question, Tollefson said, they would certainly have found Trans Mountain would have significant, adverse effects on this population.

“Then we would have had a clear answer.”

The death of Trans Mountain pipeline signals future of Indigenous rights: Chiefs

Excluding marine shipping impacts from the project’s review limited what experts, scientists and conservation groups could raise as evidence during the Trans Mountain hearings. And simultaneously allowed government and industry to avoid the responsibility of articulating their plans for how they would mitigate the impacts of increased tanker traffic on an endangered marine species.

“They canned the part of the review that would have dealt with the terminal and tanker traffic,” MacDuffee said.

Research conducted by MacDuffee and her colleagues at Raincoast found the noise from tanker traffic alone would result in a 24 per cent chance of the southern resident killer whale population becoming functionally extinct over the next 100 years.

If you add in the risk of oil spills and ship strikes, the probability of extinction within 100 years jumps to 50 per cent.

“This is the piece of Trans Mountain that nobody was getting,” MacDuffee told The Narwhal.

A likely trade-off of the pipeline and tanker project is a loss of this unique population, she said.

“This is a dialogue Canadians have not had,” MacDuffee said.

“They not being told they’re making a choice between a population of iconic killer whales or pushing through this pipeline. The cost of this project has not been a part of the dialogue.”

Ignoring Canada’s protection for at risk species

Dyna Tuytel, lawyer with Ecojustice, the law firm that represented Raincoast and co-applicant, the Living Oceans Society, told The Narwhal that the recent Federal Court of Appeal ruling means new hearings will have to take place on the subject of marine shipping and impacts to marine life.

“We know the National Energy Board identified noise from shipping as a significant, adverse environmental effect,” Tuytel explained, “and they also identified the risk of oil spills.”

“But the board didn’t think it was its responsibility to deal with those things and didn’t deal with whether or how those impacts could be mitigated.”

Impacts on the southern resident killer whale population was considered under the National Energy Board Act but not under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, “where special considerations have to be taken into account,” she said.

If any significant, adverse environmental effects of a project are found under the Environmental Assessment Act, those effects must be justified by the final decision-makers on the project — federal cabinet.

“They would have to explain why those significant effects are worth it,” Tuytel said, adding under the act government would also be required to ensure measures are being taken to lessen or avoid the impacts on endangered species.

However MacDuffee argues there are no measures that can be taken to lessen the impacts of a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic in the habitat of the southern resident population.

“Oil spills and ship strikes are probabilities…noise is a certainty. Noise is the product of moving tankers — it’s inherent in moving tankers through the Salish Sea.”

Raincoast modelling found that the increase in tanker traffic would mean a “near-continuous presence” of vessel traffic in the whale’s habitat.

“They’ll be in the presence of a vessel — everything from a large ship to small whale watching vessels — more than 90 per cent of the time,” MacDuffee said.

“There are no scenarios under existing technology where Trans Mountain goes ahead where we hope to recover killer whales.”

She added Canada’s Species At Risk Act has all but been ignored in this case.

“We would argue that the Species At Risk Act deems that if you can’t mitigate then your project can’t go ahead.”

Facing down current threats

Just days after the Federal Court of Appeals ruling, Ecojustice launched a new court challenge in an attempt to force emergency measures from Canada’s ministers responsible for the southern resident killer whale population — Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

“Under the Species At Risk Act if a species is found to be facing an imminent threat there’s an automatic trigger — it’s mandatory the ministers must act,” Megan Leslie, executive director of WWF Canada, litigant in the new case, told The Narwhal.

Additional applicants in the case are Raincoast, the David Suzuki Foundation, the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council and the Georgia Strait Alliance.

There is no disagreement between government and the scientific and conservation community that this population is facing an imminent threat, Leslie said.

In early 2018 the groups filed a petition with the federal government, asking for an emergency order to protect the whales.

Since then, the federal government has introduced new measures aimed at protecting the species. But the efforts — including announcing the Oceans’ Protection Plan, small fisheries closures and identifying new critical habitat protections — have been roundly criticized as inadequate.

“Most of what we’ve seen has been announcements around funding and research,” Tuytel said. “Very little has been concrete, enforceable and timely.”

A new rule to keep whale watching vessels 200 metres from the endangered population took 10 years to implement, Tuytel said.

How Canada is Driving Its Endangered Species to the Brink of Extinction

In the court’s decision on the Trans Mountain review, Ottawa’s proposed action plan for the southern resident population and the Oceans’ Protection Plan were called “inchoate initiatives” that by themselves are “insufficient” in the face of the project’s inadequate review.

“If the government was serious there would be a Chinook fishery closure,” Leslie said. “We don’t see government taking that legislation seriously or helping these whales in a timely and critical manner.”

“This didn’t happen this weekend. This didn’t happen this summer. These whales were listed under the Species At Risk Act in 2003,” she said.

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.

A pipeline owned by Paramount Resources Ltd. released an estimated 100,000 litres of crude oil and 190,000 litres of produced water near Zama City, in northwest Alberta, according to an April 11 incident report filed with the Alberta Energy Regulator.

The release was discovered after company personnel looked into a low-pressure alarm from the company’s leak detection system, the incident report states. The emergency status of the spill ended April 16.

The report says that although “the release was initially believed to be minor” further investigation shows the spill to be around 290,000 litres and has impacted an area of 200 metres by 200 metres.

“The pipeline was isolated and depressurized, and clean-up is underway,” the incident report states. “No reported impacts to wildlife.”

The cause of the spill is still under investigation, Paul Wykes, spokesperson with Paramount Resources, told DeSmog Canada.

The spill is located approximately 10 kilometres northeast of Zama City, Wykes said.

The remote pipeline is part of a network in the Zama area obtained by Paramount Resources when it acquired Apache Corp for $487 million in 2017.

Between May 2013 and January 2014 Apache’s pipeline infrastructure was plagued by a series of incidents that included one of the largest recent pipeline spills in North America.

In June 2013, a pipeline released 15.4 million litres of oil and toxic produced water into muskeg, contaminating a 42-hectare span of boreal forest.

Apache pipeline spill, June 2013. Photo: Apache Corp.

“Every plant and tree died” James Ahnassay, chief of the Dene Tha First Nation, told the Globe and Mail at the time.

The spill, which continued undetected for nearly one month, was originally reported to be only 9.5 million litres in volume due to an inaccurate meter reading, the company said.

Produced water can contain hydrocarbons, salt, metals, radioactive materials and chemicals uses in the oil extraction process.

An investigation later revealed the pipeline, which was only five years old at the time of the spill, cracked due to corrosion stress, caused by a pinhole leak. The company was later fined $16,500 for the spill and the Alberta Energy Regulator ordered a third-party audit of the company’s aging pipeline infrastructure.

Oil and gas exploration has been occurring in the Zama area since the 1950s.

In October 2013, Apache announced it had detected another pipeline leak after it had released an estimated 1.8 million litres of oil, chemicals and contaminated water over a three-week period.

In a statement of facts agreed to by Apache concerning the 1.8 million litre spill, the company admitted it failed to install protective fencing around the pipeline and that evidence indicated a bison may have rubbed up against the pipe, crushing it.

Two additional Apache spills occurred between 2013 and 2014, one smaller spill near Zama and one near Whitecourt, Alberta, which released nearly 2 million litres of produced water.

It was later determined Apache failed to install proper pressure valves on the pipeline near Whitecourt.

In 2016 Apache pled guilty to violations of the Pipeline Act and the Environmental Enhancement and Protection Act as was fined $350,000 by the Alberta Energy Regulator.  

In response to the April 11, 2018 spill, Paramount “immediately initiated its emergency response plan,” Wykes said.

“A team of personnel is on site as containment, clean-up and delineation efforts continue. There is no danger to the public,” he said.

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.

On a certain level, Vivian Krause and her cadre are right when they accuse Canadian non-profits of taking foreign money. American philanthropists do give money to Canadian non-profits.

There’s just one thing: it’s neither surprising nor clandestine.

The success of their argument comes down to one simple trick: strip away all relevant context and then replace it with conspiracy.

So let’s start with some context.

In case you’ve been living in a bunker for the past few decades, it’s 2018 now and we live in a global society with global problems. Of course philanthropists who are interested in, say, slowing global climate change, protecting the boreal forest or saving wild salmon, are interested in work happening in Canada.

(If slowing global climate change or saving wild salmon don’t seem like worthwhile goals to you, congratulations, you’re part of just 11 per cent of Canadians who are utterly unmoved by science. You probably want to just stop reading right now to get a headstart on writing your hate mail.)

For the rest of you science-loving people, here are some fun facts:

• Canada’s boreal forest represents 25 per cent of the world’s remaining intact forest, leading the world alongside the Amazon.
• Canada has the third-largest proven oil reserve in the world, most of which is in the oilsands.
• Canada is the world’s fifth-largest producer and fourth-largest exporter of natural gas, according to Natural Resources Canada.
• Scientists say most of Canada’s oil will need to be left mostly unexploited if we’re to avoid baking ourselves — something almost every country in the world has committed to trying its utmost at.

These facts make Canada a really central player in the future of, well, this planet we live on. They also make for some legitimately difficult conversations about what we ought to do with that knowledge.

The reality is Canada is a major battleground in the fight against climate change right now. Oil and gas companies from all over the world are trying to extract our resources ASAP, scientists and public interest groups are arguing we need to stop expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, the traditional media is in a state of collapse and politicians are doing what they do best: playing political theatre.

All of this context is conveniently stripped away in a piece published in the National Post last week, with this headline: Canadians are realizing foreign groups sabotaged our energy economy — for no good reason.

The article’s author, Suzanne Anton, the former attorney general and minister of justice for British Columbia, invokes Krause-ian logic and manages to use the word “foreign” six times in this little ditty. (That’s a heckuva lot more than the word was used in former Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver’s original ‘foreign-funded radicals’ open letter that catapulted this whole line of argument into the mainstream.)

Okay fiiine, we’ll talk about “foreign” influence if you insist, Ms. Anton.

Let’s start with the National Post itself. The National Post is owned by Postmedia, which is owned by U.S. hedge fund lenders who hold 98 per cent of Postmedia’s shares.

Next. While in power, Anton’s BC Liberals fought to keep the country’s weakest political donation rules intact. Those rules allowed donations from — you guessed it — foreigners, as well as unlimited donations from anyone, including corporations of the foreign variety to flood into the political arena and influence elected leaders.

Free from any restraints on donations, the BC Liberals raised $12 million in 2016, more money than any other provincial party in power in Canada — earning B.C. the dubious title of the “wild west” of political financing.

Between 2008 and 2015, 48 fossil fuel companies and associated industry groups donated $5.2 million to B.C. political parties, 92 per cent of which went to the BC Liberals.

If Anton was so concerned about foreign influence, you’d think she’d have a problem with all of this foreign money flowing into her party’s coffers, but nope. There was nary a squeak back then.

You’d also think Anton would be up in arms about Kinder Morgan Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of foreign-owned Kinder Morgan that is proposing an oil pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to B.C.’s coast. The Texas-based company was co-founded by Richard Kinder, who served as president of Enron until 1996, and his fellow Enron alumnus Bill Morgan. Instead of being outraged, Anton’s Liberals accepted $560,000 in political donations from Kinder Morgan and other companies connected to the pipeline sector.

But let’s not stop there. What about the oilsands themselves? A 2012 analysis by ForestEthics found 71 per cent of the ownership of the oilsands was, well, foreign. In the past couple of years, international companies have sold off more than $30 billion of oilsands assets to Canadian-based (although not necessarily Canadian-owned) firms, shifting those numbers somewhat, but the point remains: where’s the outrage over foreign ownership of Canadian natural resources?

It doesn’t stop at oil. There are a bevy of foreign-owned LNG companies looking for a piece of B.C.’s coast, too. Anton was decidedly silent when Indonesian-based Woodfibre LNG donated $58,500 to the BC Liberals between 2014 and 2016 and later became embroiled in an illegal donations scandal.

So yes, money is crossing borders. Organizations like Greenpeace, WWF and 350.org fundraise globally and have offices in many countries. Is it surprising? Not in the slightest. Are you allowed to disagree with them? Sure. Just don’t base it on some dubious argument about how they’re funded.

If you rewind about a decade, you can find a much different narrative about philanthropic donations from abroad. In 2007, Conservative environment minister John Baird welcomed a $60 million contribution — mostly from U.S. philanthropists — to protect B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest. He even credited the money as being crucial in Ottawa’s decision to contribute $30 million to the plan.

Philanthropists from around the world are interested in protecting the Great Bear Rainforest because it’s the largest intact coastal temperate rainforest in the world.

Philanthropists from around the world are interested in Canada maybe not plundering all of its oil and gas as fast as possible, because the impacts of climate change are felt, well, everywhere, especially in poorer countries.

Philanthropists from around the world are interested in funding non-profit journalism like ours because they care about things like conserving wildlife habitat and climate change. (We disclose our funders on our website and have an editorial independence policy in place to make it crystal clear that we cede no editorial control to those who support us.)

There are plenty of really difficult conversations we need to have as Canadians about our energy future. How environmental non-profits are being funded frankly isn’t one of them. But hey, it’s an effective distraction technique.

You see, while the B.C. media establishment was having a field day over a hum-drum internal strategy memo written by a Canadian 350.org staffer and the fact the Minister of Environment met with, ummm, environmentalists, Kinder Morgan was busy meeting with the federal government five times.

Kinder Morgan also didn’t waste any time in meeting with the new B.C. government after it came into office in July. Just three days after the NDP became government, Kinder Morgan lobbyist Mark Reder of FleishmanHillard HighRoad Corp. met with Attorney General David Eby, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy George Heyman, Premier John Horgan’s chief of staff Geoff Meggs and with Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Michelle Mungall.

Which brings me to my final point: to paint the oil industry as an underdog in this discourse is absurd. Even Alberta Oil Magazine printed an opinion piece calling on the oil industry to stop paying attention to Krause’s conspiracy.

“Readers may find it difficult to believe that an industry which exported product worth $129 billion in 2014 — whose members include some of the biggest players in the national economy, players who could easily outspend American charities by a factor of a hundred — can feel like victims of the environmental movement, but they do,” Markham Hislop wrote.

Instead of working to minimize the concerns of citizens by painting them as “foreign funded activists,” we’d all be a lot better off if we spent that time thinking about why civil society is in such a state of distress over new fossil fuel infrastructure, such as Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.

French thinker Rene Girard offers some insights there. He says a scapegoat removes the need to look at ourselves. In this case, there’s clearly something amongst us that really needs to be worked out.

Updated 8 a.m. March 30, 2018, to include additional information about donations from Kinder Morgan and its associates to the BC Liberals.

Updated 4 p.m. March 31, 2018, to indicate foreign ownership numbers in the Canadian oilsands have shifted in recent years.

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Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain may be in violation of a condition laid out by the National Energy Board, Canada’s federal pipeline regulator, after ordering nearly 300,000 tonnes of pipeline for the expansion project without submitting a quality management plan.

According to regulatory documents filed by the National Energy Board in September, Trans Mountain was required to file a quality management plan “at least four months prior to manufacturing any pipe and major components for the project.”

The quality management plan requires Trans Mountain to supply documentation regarding the qualifications of pipeline contractors, vendors and suppliers, quality auditing of manufactured pipe and the preservation of pipe during shipping and storage.

Yet in documents submitted to the NEB, Trans Mountain confirmed pipeline manufacturing contracts were awarded between May and July of 2017 and manufacturing of the pipeline began in October with no plan in place.

In 2012, TransCanada came under fire for failing to comply with NEB rules regarding pipeline inspections. Since 1999 the NEB has required companies to provide independent inspections of contracted pipeline manufacturers. Whistleblower Evan Vokes raised the alarm about faulty pipeline welding practices, bringing his complaint to the NEB after TransCanada refused to acknowledge his concerns.

Peter McCartney, campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, said the company’s actions are evidence of a disregard for Canada’s regulatory process.

“They think the rules don’t apply to them and yet there are 157 conditions the federal government placed on this project’s approval,” McCartney told DeSmog Canada.

The NEB has indicated it will review Trans Mountain’s potential non-compliance in an “upcoming compliance verification activity.”

In early February 2017 Trans Mountain submitted a filing to the NEB that included “incomplete process documentation” on 13 specific aspects of Condition 9, which applies to the quality management plan.

#KinderMorgan At Risk of Violating NEB Condition With Premature 300,000-Tonne Pipeline Order https://t.co/evYw3E3eaW #transmountain #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 3, 2017

Trans Mountain notified the NEB it would submit completed documentation to the NEB by August 15, 2017, but by September none of the requested document has been submitted.

In a response to the NEB, Trans Mountain confirmed it had procured pipe, fitting and other major components for the pipeline, prior to the completion of its quality management plan.

A spokesperson with the NEB told DeSmog Canada that an assessment of Trans Mountain’s “condition related filings is ongoing.”

“Throughout construction oversight, the NEB undertakes assessment of company documentation to ensure pipe and components meet regulations and standards,” the spokesperson said. “The company is accountable for meeting these regulations and standards.”

Trans Mountain did not respond to a written request for comment.

McCartney said these revelations add to growing concerns Trans Mountain is not interested in following rules laid out by the federal government.

Last month the NEB ordered Trans Mountain to remove unapproved anti-spawning mats a company biologist placed in B.C. and Alberta rivers along the proposed pipeline route. In an October 12 letter, the NEB told Trans Mountain the use of such installations “prior to approval of relevant conditions for commencement of construction and approval” of the pipeline was non-compliant.

Trans Mountain recently appealed to the NEB to help keep the project on schedule by expediting ongoing reviews of project conditions. The request came as the city of Burnaby, which vocally opposes the project, refused to issue construction permits to the company.

According to previous NEB filings, Trans Mountain plans to stockpile pipeline in New Westminster, Chilliwack, Hope, Merritt, Kamloops, Vavenby and Valemount.

Those piles could begin appearing as early as this month.

Kinder Morgan released an IPO in May, seeking $1.75 billion from investors. In a prospectus filed with security regulators the company warned delays in construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline posed a significant risk to the project.

“Should any number of risks arise, [Trans Mountain] may be inhibited, delayed or stopped altogether,” the document warned.

NEB Letter to Trans Mountain re Condition 9 September 2017 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Trans Mountain Response to NEB Letter – Condition 9 September 2017 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Image: Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline sign in Burnaby. Photo: Carol Linnitt | DeSmog Canada

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When Prime Minister Trudeau announced approval of the Trans Mountain project he said the expansion “will create 15,000 new,

middle class

jobs — the majority of them in the trades.”

Natural Resources Minister, Jim Carr, repeatedly points to this figure to justify Ottawa’s approval. He says, “the project is expected to create 15,000 new jobs during construction.”

Alberta Premier Notley relies on it too. “Initially we’re looking at about 15,000 jobs…” Former Premier Christy Clark said, “And then there’s Kinder Morgan, 15,000 new jobs…”

When the figure of “15,000” for new construction jobs emerged, I was confused. Kinder Morgan told the National Energy Board (NEB) that construction employment for the project was an average of 2,500 workers a year, for two years. It was laid out in detail in Volume 5B of the proponent’s application.

Why would elected officials promote a construction jobs figure six times Kinder Morgan’s actual number?

I contacted the Prime Minister’s office. I asked his staff to explain how the figure their boss relies on was developed. They did not do so. I even wrote the Prime Minister directly. I received no reply. Natural Resources Canada said, “The numbers are from the proponent” and “believed” they were based on Conference Board of Canada estimates, while Premier Notley’s office said it came from the industry and directed me to Trans Mountain’s website.

There it was. “During construction, the anticipated workforce will reach the equivalent of 15,000 jobs per year…” Kinder Morgan provided no insight as to how that figure was derived.

ICYMI: Robyn Allan Q&A: Trudeau Government ‘Dangerously Misled’ on Kinder Morgan Pipeline

I inquired directly and was told, “the figures come from two Conference Board of Canada reports.” Links to those reports were provided.

I read both reports. Neither included reference to 15,000 construction jobs as Kinder Morgan said they would. What they did provide was a figure of 58,037 person years of project development employment—over seven years beginning in 2012.

I knew the 58,037 figure to be the same as that provided in a Conference Board of Canada report authored in 2013 and filed by Kinder Morgan as part of the discredited NEB hearing. The Conference Board based its estimate on an Input Output model which — because of its many design flaws — delivers highly exaggerated results.

I was still at a loss as to how the 15,000 construction workforce figure was derived.

I wrote Kinder Morgan again. The company responded: “…person years of employment during Project development is 58,037. This figure has been divided by 3 years and 10 months resulting in an equivalent of 15,000 jobs.”

I asked Kinder Morgan why almost four years was chosen as the time horizon for construction, when the project will take two. This is when the company stopped answering my questions on construction employment.

The Conference Board did not estimate construction jobs; Kinder Morgan did. Kinder Morgan divided 48 months into the Conference Board project development figure, then multiplied it by 12 months to arrive at 15,000 jobs a year.

Inappropriately, the figure was renamed as construction workforce.

It is unbelievable. It is a misuse of Input Output model results and a deceptive relabelling.

The Search for #KinderMorgan #TransMountain’s 15,000 Construction Jobs https://t.co/ZuFLKF3dss #bcpoli #cdnpoli #factcheck via @robynallan

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 28, 2017

Even if the Conference Board’s figure of 58,037 person years of development employment was reliable—which it is not—that number cannot arbitrarily be divided by 48 months of a longer project time table and then the result annualized so the proponent can claim there are 15,000 construction jobs to be created.

Kinder Morgan had no business altering the time horizon or renaming the nature of the employment to characterize it as something it is not. Kinder Morgan’s 15,000 construction workforce figure is meaningless.

The absurdity of Kinder Morgan’s 15,000 construction jobs claim is readily illustrated. Kinder Morgan’s says its construction schedule will begin in September 2017 with completion slated for December 2019 — 28 months.

Using Kinder Morgan’s formula, and the Conference Board figure it abused — (58,037 divided by 28 times 12) — Trans Mountain’s construction workforce catapults from 15,000 a year to 25,000 a year — a figure larger than the entire Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction workforce in B.C. That’s how outrageous Kinder Morgan’s logic is.

Why would Kinder Morgan pay the Conference Board for an employment estimate derived from an expensive modelling approach and inappropriately turn it into a construction workforce estimate when it has its own, more reliable one of an average of 2,500 workers over two years?

ICYMI: 4 Reasons the ‘Oil to Tidewater’ Argument is Bunk

Trans Mountain’s 15,000 construction workforce jobs are a scam. The more realistic figure is less than 20 per cent that size.

It is a betrayal of the public trust that Trudeau, Carr, and Notley, so eagerly got behind Kinder Morgan’s manipulated jobs figure without checking to make sure it made any sense.

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.

Justin Trudeau announced the approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline Tuesday, saying the project is integral to meeting Canada’s climate commitments.

“Today’s decision is an integral part of our plan to uphold the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions while creating jobs and protecting the environment,” Trudeau told reporters at a press conference.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project will twin an existing pipeline running from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. increasing transport capacity from 300,000 barrels of oil per day to 890,000 barrels per day. Trudeau also approved an application to increase capacity of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline from 390,000 to 915,000 barrels per day.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, the two pipelines combined represent an increase of 23 to 28 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent released into the atmosphere.

Under the Paris Agreement Canada pledged to reduce emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Canada’s current policies aren’t expected to meet those targets. According to a recent analysis by Climate Action Network, Canada is expected to miss those targets by 91 megatonnes.

Trans Mountain and Line 3 put Canada at a further disadvantage when it comes to meeting those targets.

“If built, these projects would facilitate huge growth in the tar sands,” Adam Scott, analyst with Oil Change International, said, “increasing total greenhouse gas pollution by as much as [277 megatonnes] of CO2 every year — equivalent to the pollution from 58 million cars on the road.”*

Trudeau acknowledged the Trans Mountain approval was made in light of increased production in the oilsands.

“We know there will be an increase in the production in oilsands in coming years,” Trudeau said, adding Canada’s pipeline network is operating at capacity, meaning more pipelines are necessary.

But Scott says that position isn’t backed up by the facts.

“There is no need for any additional pipeline capacity,” Scott said, pointing to a recent analysis done by Oil Change International.

Other experts, such as independent economist Robyn Allan, have demonstrated the faulty calculations behind the ‘need for new pipelines’ myth.

While the construction of new pipelines will mean more carbon emissions, Trudeau said Alberta’s climate change plan, which caps oilsands emissions at 100 megatonnes is the key to Canada’s climate action.

Alberta has yet to demonstrate how it will fit existing oilsands projects, proposed and approved, into the 100 megatonne cap.

The Trans Mountain pipeline review process excluded consideration of upstream climate impacts of the pipeline. The National Energy Board, Canada’s federal pipeline regulator, argued such concerns fell outside the scope of a federal environmental assessment.

On the election trail Trudeau promised to revamp Canada’s pipeline assessment process and promised to put Trans Mountain through a more robust review if elected. The federal government has since backed down from that promise.

Beyond its climate implications, many argue other unacceptable risks posed by the pipeline to marine animals and indigenous rights were also not adequately considered in the review process.

Marcie Keever, oceans and vessels program director from Friends of the Earth, said Trans Mountain is a major threat to vulnerable species off the coast of southern British Columbia.

“In approving this ecosystem-destroying pipeline, Canada’s leaders have ignored the threats to the Salish Sea, its marine species, and its 8 million people, including 29 Tribes and First Nations,” Keever said.

The pipeline will result in a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic in the Salish Sea and Puget Sound, home to a struggling population of resident killer whales.  An analysis commissioned by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation found if the pipeline proceeds, southern resident killer whales have a 50-50 chance of becoming locally extinct as a result.

Image: Wilderness Committee

Trudeau said his cabinet weighed the decision to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline carefully, adding he would not have approved it should it represent a significant threat to coastal ecosystems. His announcement also included a promise to implement a long-awaited oil tanker ban off the north coast of British Columbia and the final dismissal of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

Peter McCartney, climate campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, an organization actively involved as an intervenor in the review processes for both Trans Mountain and Northern Gateway, said Trudeau gave mixed messages in his announcement.

“Today’s tanker ban is an acknowledgement that tar sands tankers pose an enormous threat to coastal communities and ecosystems,” McCartney said. “If Justin Trudeau agrees that the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline, he can’t possibly think that the Salish Sea is better.”

Approval of the Trans Mountain project is in Canada’s “national interest,” Trudeau said today, saying despite opposition the pipeline “will get built.”

“Canadians know that strong action on the environment is good for the economy. It makes us more competitive by fostering innovation and reducing pollution,” Trudeau said.

“Canadians value clean air and water, beautiful coasts and wilderness and refuse to accept that they must be compromised to create growth. We agree.”

McCartney said, despite the rhetoric, Trudeau has clearly chosen to ignore the wish of British Columbians.

“To ignore the deeply held views of the vast majority of people who live on this coast is outrageous,” he said.

“But frankly this is not their call,” he added.

There are already seven legal challenges launched against Trans Mountain and its review process by local First Nations, environmental groups and municipalities.

This past summer a B.C. court ruled the provincial government failed to uphold its duty to consult with First Nations during the review of the Northern Gateway pipeline. Many anticipate the Trans Mountain pipeline, conducted under a similar review structure, will face similar legal rulings.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, an outspoken opponent of the project, said the pipeline approval is a “big step backwards for Canada’s environment and economy.”

“This project was approved under a flawed and biased Harper-era regulatory process that shut out local voices and ignored climate change and First Nations concerns.”

“I — along with tens of thousands of residents, local First Nations, and other Metro Vancouver cities who told the federal government a resounding ‘no’ to this project — will keep speaking out against this pipeline expansion that doesn’t make sense for our economic or environmental future.”

Sierra Club B.C.’s Caitlyn Vernon said in no uncertain terms that Trudeau has picked a fight with the west coast.

“The Kinder Morgan pipeline will not be built. Not on our watch,” Vernon said.

“Communities across B.C. came together to stop Enbridge’s Northern Gateway. The same will happen to stop Kinder Morgan. Legal challenges have already been filed, and First Nations and municipalities are vowing to do what it takes.”

She added, “We will not rest until pipelines and tankers are replaced by a truly renewable energy future for B.C. and for Canada.”

*Updated: Monday, June 4, 2018 9:37am pst. This article originally stated the combined emissions from the Trans Mountain and Line 3 pipelines would amount to 27 megatonnes. That figure has been corrected to 277 megatonnes.*

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.

Economist Robyn Allan has a penchant for details. The former president and CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia also sees the benefits of informed decision-making, which is why Allan recently wrote a myth-busting letter to federal minister of natural resources, Jim Carr, on the issue of oil pipelines.

The minister, Allan said, had been “dangerously misled” by senior ministerial staff about the economic benefits of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project. An internal document provided to Minister Carr, and subsequently released through Freedom of Information legislation, was “riddled with factual and analytical mistakes and displays a lack of attention to detail” Allan wrote in her letter.

Among her findings, Allan stated the minister had been misinformed about the need for increased oil pipeline capacity in Canada especially when considering Canada’s pipelines — despite claims to the contrary — are not operating at full capacity and market conditions have substantially altered the oil production landscape in recent years (see Allan's evidence in the full letter below).

With the federal decision on Kinder Morgan expected to come down by December and the recent (rather spectacular) collapse of public trust in the National Energy Board, pipeline politics are heating up in Canada.

DeSmog Canada asked Allan five questions about her take on Canada’s pipeline debate and the quandary of the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

.@RobynAllan: Natural Resources Minister @jimcarr_wpg ‘dangerously misled’ on $ benefits of #KinderMorgan https://t.co/KVhiWWFrXZ #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 7, 2016

Q:  What are the greatest misconceptions Canadians have about the need for new pipelines in the country?

A: The first major misconception is that there is an urgent need for new pipeline capacity to deliver Western Canadian crude oil supply to market. There is sufficient transportation infrastructure to meet market demand not only now, but up until at least 2025. 

The second major misconception is that markets in Asia exist and we need West Coast tidewater access to serve these markets.

There is no market for Alberta’s heavy oil in Asia. Oil industry groups, such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, make statements that suggest there is a market in Asia but these representations are not consistent with the facts.

Oil producers have been actively trying to create a market in Asia for more than half a decade. The National Energy Board granted them guaranteed access to Trans Mountain’s Westridge dock to help them do so, but their attempts have been unsuccessful. If markets in Asia ever develop it will take many years and Asian purchasers are not going to pay a higher price for Alberta’s crude than it commands in North America. 

The third major misconception is that new pipelines are needed to generate economic prosperity.

Pipeline proponents like Kinder Morgan claim that when new pipelines are built, access to markets will allow oil producers to capture higher prices on every barrel produced and these increased revenues will trickle down as increased gross domestic product, fiscal revenues and jobs.

This was the argument used to promote Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and now Trans Mountain but there is no basis in fact to support this idea. New transportation capacity will not enhance the price received for Western Canadian oil. What enhances the price of a raw resource is value added —upgrading and refining. Producers in Canada want to ship that value down the pipeline along with meaningful jobs so the benefits are realized in foreign economies. 

Q: Canadians are constantly being told we desperately need new pipelines. Is that true? Or, how do we best understand that claim?

A: When crude oil prices were rising the industry believed these prices would be sustained, and in fact, continue to rise. For a time prices were over $100US a barrel. The industry based its production projections on these high prices.

These prices made numerous projects appear economic and it was easier for oil producers to strategize to export the crude than invest in value added in Canada. Up until about 2008 a number of upgraders and new refineries were planned in Alberta. Then the plan changed to a raw resource export strategy. When bitumen is exported rather than turned into synthetic crude oil (SCO) twice as much pipeline capacity is needed per barrel of bitumen. (There is a need for pipelines to import condensate to dilute bitumen so it will flow through a pipeline and then because its still heavier than SCO it takes longer to move it back out as diluted bitumen.)

These two factors — an aggressive production outlook based on higher prices and a new strategy to export bitumen raw rather than process it in Canada — meant a huge increase in the expected need for future pipeline capacity space. These factors brought forward new pipeline projects — the first was Keystone XL. As questions began to be asked about the desirability of diluted bitumen exports the industry became concerned and turned up the heat on the need and benefits from new pipelines. 

There is no desperate need for new pipelines, but the industry — concerned that its social licence window is closing — is trying to get one approved.

Q: You complied some really interesting data on stalled or cancelled oilsands projects. Do you think we underestimate how quickly market forces can change production projections?

A: The market forces now are more normal than the high prices that stimulated the aggressive production projections. There has been a rapid expansion of crude oil production as industry tries to get it out of the ground and to market — any market — before their assets become stranded.

That behaviour has contributed to the price decline, but as we see, countries like Saudi Arabia, don’t want to lose market share. They don’t want to restrict production because the fossil fuel industry is an industry in decline. There is a structural shift occurring.

Governments all over the world acknowledge a need to limit greenhouse gasses. Canada will not meet its targets by building infrastructure to ship more heavy oil. We need to move away from fossil fuels, not subsidize their extraction by approving transportation systems to deliver more to market — to markets that don’t yet exist. We need meaningful decisions to support achievement of Canada's climate change obligations under the Paris Agreement.

Q: Did the National Energy Board err in its recommendation the federal government approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline?

A: The National Energy Board did not do its job. It did not hold a quasi-judicial hearing based on the rules of fairness and natural justice. It limited the scope of issues, refused to allow cross-examination, did not test the evidence, and failed to protect the public interest.

The National Energy Board report is not credible — the Board does not know if its recommendation is correct because it did not undertake any reasonable amount of due diligence to be able to arrive at a considered recommendation.

Prime Minister Trudeau knows this. He promised that the Trans Mountain review would be redone and he has betrayed Canadians by breaking that promise.

Certainly I believe that the Trans Mountain expansion is not needed and its economic impact will be negative not to mention the environmental harm it will do even without the inevitable fresh and marine water spills. However, because due process has not been followed, the NEB recommendation cannot be trusted. Until due process is followed, permission for Trans Mountain’s expansion should never be given.

Q:  Some Canadians feel like pipelines are being rammed down their throats for the benefit of the energy industry. Other Canadians feel like ignorant environmentalists just don't understand how critical new pipelines are for Canadian prosperity. The Prime Minister seems caught between the desire to please both camps. How do you make sense of this very messy national conversation?

A: Environmentalists are not ignorant and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion — first and foremost — is for the benefit of Kinder Morgan — a U.S.-based multinational that does not contribute its fair share of tax revenues.

Kinder Morgan plans to siphon $1 billion a year from the Canadian economy if this project is approved. Is this in the public interest? We don’t know: the Board refused to consider it.

The Board pretended to listen, but it refused to hear. Mr. Trudeau pretended to hear and now he’s not listening. 

The situation would not be getting messy if the elected officials who promised due process delivered on their promise. That is all that is being asked by concerned Canadians — that the due process that is our right be given. 

Robyn Allan Letter to Minister Carr re: 'Economic Benefits of Oil Pipelines' memo | September 14, 2016 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Image: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr. Photo: Government of Canada

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.

Restoring oversight. Meaningful participation. Rebuilding trust.

Such phrases sounded just so good when the federal Liberal Party first detailed its plan to address the environmental assessment and consultation process for major projects like interprovincial pipelines and LNG export terminals.

But such rhetoric may already be critically undermined thanks to way the government has approached public consultations in its environmental review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project, which would almost triple the Edmonton-to-Burnaby pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels/day.

Such missteps include but are certainly not limited to: appointing a former LNG lobbyist and partner with Kinder Morgan to sit on the panel, providing inadequate notice to the public and First Nations of the actual hearings, and failing to mandate that the consultations actually have any bearing on the final decision by cabinet.

The Trans Mountain Expansion will be the first major resource project to receive a decision by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, with a decision expected by just before Christmas.

As a result, the way the government handles criticism of its panel review process may set the tone for the remainder of its efforts to reverse the previous government’s dismembering of the environmental review process. At this point, it’s not looking good.

Panel to Rebuild Public Trust in Federal Assessment Process

In late May, the National Energy Board (NEB) granted the Trans Mountain Expansion a partial approval, subject to 157 conditions.

(Technically, and thanks to the same changes in 2012 that handed the NEB responsibility for conducting reviews of pipeline projects, the federal cabinet didn’t even need to listen to the NEB’s verdict and could have okayed the project even if it hadn’t received approval.)

But the NEB is arguably ill-suited to perform environmental reviews given its technical focus, so the federal government appointed a three-person panel to conduct an additional review of the project in order to help restore some of that evaporated public trust.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr appointed to the panel: Kim Baird (former chief of Tsawwassen First Nation, lobbyist for Woodfibre LNG and partner with Kinder Morgan), Tony Penikett (former premier of Yukon) and Annette Trimbee (president of the University of Winnipeg and member of the Alberta government’s recent non-renewable resource royalty review panel).

The panel was tasked with consulting citizens, First Nations and local governments in ten cities during July and August: Calgary, Edmonton, Jasper, Kamloops, Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Burnaby, Vancouver and Victoria.

#KinderMorgan Review Panel Slammed for Perceived Conflict of Interest https://t.co/28WwWsfGoq #cdnpoli #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 8, 2016

Panel Member's Relationship With Kinder Morgan Questioned

But problems started almost immediately. Baird was quickly flagged as carrying a perceived conflict of interest given her former ties to the company that she was supposed to be reviewing with an unbiased lens.

A video posted by the Dogwood Initiative showed that Baird had a working relationship with Kinder Morgan Canada’s president Ian Anderson, having previously shared staff expertise with the company and stating “our perspectives were more similar than not.”

“Of all of the people in British Columbia that you could possibly find to take the job, why not pick somebody who doesn’t have an online video of them visiting the Kinder Morgan facilities and boardroom in Calgary and talking about how similar they are and sharing staff?” says Kai Nagata, the Dogwood Initiative’s director of energy and democracy.

“There four-and-a-half million people in the province: just pick somebody who’s not directly involved with the proponent,” he adds.

Hearings Consistently Accused of Being Poorly Publicized and Scheduled

The Kamloops hearing was a disaster. The event’s organization was criticized throughout the day, with many reporting that citizens weren’t given enough notice.

At one point, Penikett interrupted one of the citizens speaking to ask how they got to the university campus, implying their assumed reliance on fossil fuels makes them an unsuitable critic of the project. The incident, Nagata says, “betrays a complete ignorance about the purpose of the pipeline” as the heavy crude will be bound for export not direct usage in domestic cars.

“Why didn’t they just get Ezra Levant to run the panel?” Nagata quips.

Many of the same concerns have been voiced in other communities: the Chilliwack Times reported the consultations were slammed by local First Nations for a lack of invitations, while the Langley Times observed the hearings were considered “poorly publicized and badly scheduled.”

Nagata says Dogwood has been hearing the same thing from all of the communities: he says if the government really wants to find out what people think, they should have panel that has “at least the appearance of being impartial,” give more than 48 hours notice that a panel hearing is happening and host it at a time when people aren’t vacationing or working.

He adds that all the problems with the NEB process are present in these panel hearings: the proponent doesn’t have to appear, there’s no cross-examination or testing of evidence, and there’s no real mechanism to introduce scientific evidence other than attaching a PDF to an email with a staggeringly long address.

“That’s just not how you conduct a public infrastructure review process in the developed world,” Nagata says.

“It does not meet the basic test for procedural fairness or natural justice. If that’s the basis on which they plan to approve this pipeline, they’re setting themselves up for political fallout and legal challenges. And that’s really sad given the very clear promises made during the election.”

Trimbee Also Under Fire For Stance on Fossil Fuel Divestment

And Baird isn’t the only member on the review panel with a questionable history.

Trimbee, the president of the University of Winnipeg and member of Alberta’s criticized royalty review panel, has come under fire from students for the way the university’s administration handled a June 27 vote on fossil fuel divestment, with the outcome marked by similar problems as the federal review panel.

Andrew Vineberg, a student at the University of Winnipeg and community liaison for its students’ association, says the call for divestment started in the fall of 2014, with the school’s administration and board of regents agreeing to do a risk assessment of divestment in May of 2015 (which he admits was an admiringly fast response, noting that some campuses push for divestment for years without any success).

Vineberg describes the risk assessment phase as “very open and transparent and public,” with administration seeming open to considering the issue.

Trimbee attended every related meeting.

Underpublicized Vote Did Not Explicitly Address Divestment

But the lofty rhetoric, which Vineberg describes as attempting to “make it seem like they were bolstering their environmental policy,” was quickly undermined by the out-of-nowhere vote on the issue that took place after the school year was done and with some student representatives unable to attend.

The agenda was released only a few days before the meeting, with the phrase “responsible investment” replacing “fossil fuel divestment” even though the risk assessment had spoken explicitly about the latter.

Vineberg says many of the regents didn’t know what they were voting on coming in, and that the wording was vague and toothless (the proposal being “a responsible investment policy that applies Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria and a separate fund option that is 100 per cent fossil fuel free and geared towards ‘green’ innovation.”)

“The university went in a direction that, to me, suggests they like the PR value that publically claiming a support of sustainability and environmentalism and social justice and indigenization brings to them but they do not actually want to do the work and change their manner of business to align themselves with those values,” he says. “They do not want to compromise the way they do business.”

Vineberg says they’re now gearing up for the next phase of organizing and mass mobilizing for September.

Environmental Review Panel Serves as Predominant Interim Intervention

In late June, the federal government announced a review of the NEB and environmental assessment process. Both review panels will be presenting their recommendations in January 2017, after cabinet is expected to have made a decision on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project.

In other words, this environment review panel serves as the predominant interim intervention by the federal government into what’s otherwise considered a hopelessly flawed assessment process for one of the biggest pipeline projects in the foreseeable future.

And the government appointed a former Kinder Morgan partner, a panelist who attempts to undermine criticisms by accusing them of relying on fossil fuels to get to the public consultation, and a university president who has circumvented pushes for fossil divestment on her campus.

In addition, the consultations have been arguably underpublicized, while the perspectives from citizens who manage to book a babysitter and take the day off work to attend them have no actual legal bearing on the decision.

Nagata suggests it fits into the broader pattern of action not meeting rhetoric, with the federal government granting Site C dam permits only being the most recent example. And now the panelists are heading to Burnaby (August 9 to 11) and Vancouver (August 16 to 18), spots of fierce opposition to the proposed pipeline.

“They think they’ve had a rough ride so far from the Interior and Fraser Valley communities,” Nagata says.

“I think people are pretty pissed off. The whole idea was the Liberals campaigned on the glaring inadequacies of the National Energy Board process. They were very forceful in denouncing the Harper government’s approach to pipeline approvals. And what they’ve done is arguably made the entire process worse.”

Image: Pipeline review meeting via Kai Nagata

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.

The National Energy Board (NEB) recommended a conditional approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion today after a years-long review process many participants criticized as inadequate, rushed and lacking in transparency.

In a filing posted Thursday the NEB recommended cabinet approve the project, subject to 157 conditions.

“Taking into account all the evidence, considering all relevant factors, and given that there are considerable benefits nationally, regionally and to some degree locally, the Board found that the benefits of the Project would outweigh the residual burdens,” the filing states.

Yet many individuals and organizations involved in the process say today’s recommendation comes on the heels of a beleaguered review process that did not consider many of the risks of the project.

“Today’s recommendation is exactly as we expected given the way this panel approached the review,” Robyn Allan, former CEO of ICBC and economic risk expert, told DeSmog Canada. “It was simply set up as a way to get to yes.”

Allan publicly withdrew from the Kinder Morgan review process, saying she could no longer “endorse a process that is not working.”

“The NEB we all know is not credible, but somehow today we’re behaving as if it means something,” Allan said, adding the 157 conditions the board placed on the project are “predicated on a false scope of the issue.”

“The scope that the board reviewed is so limited it doesn’t look at risk or cost for our society from this pipeline system,” she said. “From that view it’s very easy to say the benefits outweigh the costs.”

The expansion project involves twinning the existing pipeline that runs from near Edmonton to the Burrard Inlet in Burnaby B.C. The project will nearly triple the pipeline capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oilsands crude and other fuels per day.

The NEB recommendation will be taken under review by the federal government and cabinet is expected to make a final decision on the project by December.

Recommendation Made Under Broken Process

The NEB-led review process was plagued with credibility issues from the outset.

Restrictive participation guidelines meant hundreds of applicants were denied the opportunity to give oral or written testimony in the hearings. In total, 468 citizens had their intervenor applications rejected, including a group of 27 climate experts.

The board also deemed climate impacts of the project irrelevant to the hearings and on that basis excluded information on upstream environmental impacts of oilsands extraction. The panel eventually excluded oral testimony and cross-examination from the process altogether.

Chris Tollefson, law professor and counsel for B.C. Nature and Nature Canada in the hearings, said today’s recommendation reflects the inadequacy of the review process.

“What this process and report today underscores is how urgent the need is for restructuring the review of these projects,” Tollefson said.

“This panel never secured a credible, scientific record upon which to make a decision for a variety of reasons.”

“At the end of the day what a process like this needs to be asking is, will this project make a net contribution to a sustainable economy, will this projects put us on a path to meeting our international climate commitments?”

“Neither of those questions are asked or answered in this report,” he said.

Canada's currently regulatory structure has "outlived it's usefulness," Tollefson said.

"We need to have a process that is multi-governmental, that brings together all levels of government, including First Nations government in the review. We need to have a process that is informed by independent science and allows for a true ability to challenge science put forward by the proponent.

"We need a process that integrates as opposed to fractures the spheres of responsibility."

Trudeau’s Broken Promise

On the campaign trail prior to the last federal election, the Liberal party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to overhaul Canada’s pipeline review process in order to restore public faith in the process.

During a campaign stop on the west coast in August 2015, Prime Minister Trudeau told Kai Nagata, communications director with the Dogwood Initiative, the NEB overhaul would apply to the Kinder Morgan review process.

“That process needs to be redone,” Trudeau said, but later backed down from that promise and allowed the review process to continue on as it had begun.

“I think it’s disappointing the Liberal government did not follow through with its campaign promise to overhaul the NEB,” Nagata told DeSmog Canada

“What they have is a shell that has lost all democratic accountability, that is 90 per funded by industry and has said yes to every pipeline that has come their way. That’s a 100 per cent track record, so good for them.”

This week the Liberals established a three-person panel to conduct consultations with First Nations and communities along the pipeline route, something Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said will help restore credibility to the pipeline approval process.

The creation of the panel, however, has been roundly criticized as a smokescreen meant to placate a public frustrated with an inadequate review process.

In the House of Commons Burnaby South NDP MP Kennedy Stewart said the Prime Minister promised to fix the broken review system, “and the people of B.C. believed him.”

Questioning the Minister on Kinder Morgan

Today in Parliament, I asked the Liberal Government why it broke its promise to British Columbians on Kinder Morgan. Check out the clip below…

Posted by Kennedy Stewart on Tuesday, May 17, 2016

“But this week the National Energy Board will report on Kinder Morgan using the exact same broken process as the Conservatives,” he said.

“The Liberals’ new ad-on process,” Kennedy added, “little more than a smokescreen, actually does nothing to fix the NEB review process.”

Nagata said Minister Carr’s defense of the consultation panel was troubling.

“Minister Carr came very close to promising an approval by this December, making fun of the previous government for not successfully approving a pipeline and ensuring industry the advisory panel he appointed will not get in the way.”

“Ultimately we think these decisions are too important to leave up to politicians. These people are in office for four years, their timelines are short, whereas the First Nations and citizens who live here have to live with the costs for decades.”

Nagata said Dogwood is campaigning for a provincial vote on tankers off the B.C. coast. “Luckily we have this mechanism in B.C. to put the decision to citizens directly.”

Rueben George, chief of the Tsliel-Waututh First Nation, which lies directly across the Burrard Inlet from Kinder Morgan’s facilities, said he is not at all surprised by today’s NEB recommendation.

“My reaction….I barely had a reaction,” George told DeSmog Canada. “I had no faith in the process. The process historically approves pipelines. I’m not surprised in the least.”

George said the news comes as he is attending a Burrard Inlet Science Symposium at Stanley Park.

“We’re going to clean up the Burrard Inlet and eat shellfish from here for the first time in 30 years,” George said. His nation is currently leading a legal challenge against the Kinder Morgan review, saying the process failed to adequately involve First Nations.

“We’ve been implementing our plan for how we’re going to stop Kinder Morgan and we’re going to continue on with that, being stewards of the land. What we’re really doing here when we stand up against Kinder Morgan we’re looking out for the best interest of the land and waters but it’s truly for the best interests of Canadians.”

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TransCanada received permission from federal regulators to re-start the Keystone Pipeline a week after a 16,800-gallon spill in South Dakota. The pipeline started back up on Sunday morning at a reduced operating pressure.   The incident has given ammunition to a group appealing the decision by the South Dakota Public Utility Commission (PUC) to re-certify TransCanada’s permit to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, despite President Obama’s denial of a permit needed to cross international borders.    The PUC reasoned that the next president could decide to issue the permit — a reminder that TransCanada has not given up on building the northern route of the Keystone XL. However, this most recent spill renews questions about the company’s ability to build safe pipelines.   When Evan Vokes, a former TransCanada materials engineer-turned-whistleblower, heard about a small spill along the Keystone Pipeline, he guessed that the leak would be found at a transition weld near where the pipeline crossed under a road. Transition welds connect thinner-walled pipe to thicker-walled pipe.

Places where the pipeline goes under road crossings require thicker pipe than the rest of the line, so wherever the Keystone goes under a road you will find transition welds, Vokes explained.    It turns out that Vokes’s prediction was right. In a corrective action order notice issued to TransCanada on Saturday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency that regulates interstate pipelines, indicated the probable cause of the leak was from a girth weld anomaly at a transition site. 

Vokes warned his former employer and PHMSA about the transition welds, which he described as “inherently risky.” Welding different thicknesses of pipe together is harder to do than welding the same thickness, and it is more difficult to get accurate X-rays of welds.   “Even a seasoned welding inspector could miss imperfect welds when reviewing X-rays used to check the welds during the pipeline’s construction,“ Vokes told DeSmog. “And any less than perfect weld is more prone to crack when the pipeline moves, which happens when weather conditions change.”   Vokes felt so strongly about the risk of leaky transition welds that he sent an email to TransCanada’s CEO Russ Girling, warning that the transition weldsused on the Keystone Pipeline were a bad idea.   He pointed out to Girling that TransCanada was ignoring an advisory PHMSA issued in 2003 that warned against the use of such welds because they are prone to crack under stress.   He also emailed Kenneth Lee, a top PHMSA engineer who ran a workshop on “Pipeline Construction Challenges” in 2010, to inform Lee of his concerns.    Diagram of an improper weld transition part of a PHMSA presentation.   Lee responded by email: “We are in full support of efforts and technologies to improve pipeline safety, including many of those you have mentioned. The increased incidents of girth weld cracks are of great concern to us and we treat this very seriously.”    But Vokes believes his warning to Lee was ignored because no corrective actions were taken against TransCanada during the pipeline installation to stop the transition welds.   ”Bad welds can result in a catastrophe, “Vokes explained to DeSmog. “A tiny crack in a weld can leak for years before it is found, because leak detection systems are only capable of detecting leaks when a pipeline’s volume drops by two percent in the course of a day.”   TransCanada’s detection system didn’t pick up the leak near Freemont, South Dakota, allowing the pipeline to spill at least 168,000 gallons of dilbit (refined Canadian tar sands oil) before a landowner noticed the spill.   It is impossible to say how long the pipeline was leaking, or how long it could have gone on leaking, had the spill taken place in a more remote area.    “There could be hundreds of cracks in welds along the Keystone Pipeline and TransCanada’s leak detection system wouldn’t locate them,” Vokes said. "The Enbridge Pipeline spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, leaked twice as much dilbit before anyone noticed.”   The mounting failures of various TransCanada pipelines does not surprise Vokes because “the company often did not follow the code of construction.”    But he is surprised and dismayed that, when pipeline safety is at stake, regulators in Canada and the United States allow companies to continue to break the rules with few to no consequences.    Two other TransCanada projects that failed not long after they started operating are the Bison Pipeline in Wyoming, and the North Central Corridor Loop in Alberta, Canada, validating Vokes’s claims.   Vokes was fired by TransCanada before most of the changes he advocated took place. PHMSA did issue a corrective warning to the company related to the construction of the Keystone Pipeline, but it was for issues that did not include the transition welds.    Vokes believes that pipelines would be safe if the rules of construction were followed. But he is aware that the rules were broken repeatedly here.   While reviewing photos that Cindy Myers, a member of the Dakota Rural Action group, took near the spill site, Vokes noticed a person on the pipeline right-of-way carrying a firearm. “Firearms are not permitted on a pipeline’s right-of-way,“ Vokes said. “This shows that the company and the regulators are not taking pipeline safety seriously. To ignore safety rules even when the public is present shows a total disregard of public safety." 

Man with reflective safety vest carrying a gun at the site of the Keystone spill in South Dakota 4/4/2016. Photo courtesy of Cindy Myers   Gary Dorr, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, told DeSmog that TransCanada also ignores laws that say Indigenous peoples must be consulted before pipelines cross a tribe’s land. He is one of the legal challengers that includes members of the Dakota Rural Action, the South Dakota Keystone Consolidated Interveners, and several individual landowners who are challenging the South Dakota PUC’s decision to re-certify TransCanada’s permit. “The Keystone XL, if built, will cross tribal land without permission given to TransCanada by the tribes,” Dorr said.   The challengers filed an appeal against the PUC’s decision that is pending. ABC-TV affiliate KSFY in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, reported that the “circuit court judge in Pierre is expected to issue an order on consolidating the lawsuits against the PUC into one appeal next week.”   Dorr hopes this spill will make a difference in the court’s decision. “We were promised TransCanada’s pipeline won’t spill,” he told DeSmog, “and that is a promise that the company cannot keep.”   The PHMSA corrective order calls for more oversight on the Keystone Pipeline.   But Vokes told DeSmog, “The only way to find out if there are other slow leaks would be to dig up the pipeline everywhere a transition weld was made. There easily could be hundreds of undetected leaks in that pipeline.”

  Photo credit: Keystone Pipeline spill site in South Dakota, courtesy of Bold Nebraska.

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.