The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) is working hard to undo damage caused by pipeline company Kinder Morgan’s refusal to release oil spill response plans in British Columbia. The company’s lack of disclosure angered the province of B.C., especially when it was revealed that Kinder Morgan released detailed spill response plans in Washington State for portions of the pipeline that extend across the border.

The pipeline association recently announced it would form a task force to address the issue, hoping to waylay growing public concerns by developing “guiding principles” for disclosure.

“A number of our members have faced significant public pressure to disclose all information contained in emergency response plans. The CEPA task force will work to support that by establishing clear principles and guidelines that seek to find the right balance between the public’s right to know, the privacy of personal information and the security considerations also required for public safety,” Jim Donihee, chief operating officer with CEPA, said.

In the case of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, the company argues it shouldn’t disclose spill response plans — even to the province of British Columbia, which has requested the plans during the National Energy Board Review of the Trans Mountain pipeline — because of “safety concerns.”

DeSmog Canada first published the documents Kinder Morgan publicly released in the U.S., comparing them to similar documents severely redacted or completely withheld in B.C.

Since then, the story has been covered in the Globe and Mail, the CBC and the Canadian Press, forcing Kinder Morgan and the National Energy Board (NEB) to defend the company’s actions.

NEB spokesman Darin Barter said the board was considering making public pipeline emergency plans mandatory for energy companies.

“Our chairman is not very happy that there’s a lack of transparency around these emergency response plans,” Barter said. “Canadians deserve to have that information. There’s a public will for that information. Industry needs to find a way to make that information public.”

In a recent letter to Enbridge, the NEB expressed concern over the company’s requirement that municipalities sign non-disclosure agreements before emergency plans are released.

“I am concerned that Enbridge’s practice of requesting NDAs is not consistent with the principle of regulatory transparency that guides the board’s regulatory approach,” NEB chairman Peter Watson said in a letter, available on the NEB website.

Watson said he would like to know how Enbridge would proceed with a municipality unwilling to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Despite the NEB’s recent push for increased transparency, the board ruled Kinder Morgan was within its right to deny the province of British Columbia detailed spill response and emergency plans for the Trans Mountain pipeline.

When B.C. asked the NEB to compel Kinder Morgan to release the plans, the board refused.

As DeSmog Canada reported, the plans withheld in B.C. included contact information for first responders and company officials and outlined access to oil booms, pumps, hoses and storage tanks and other supplies needed in the event of an oil spill.

Canadian Energy Pipeline Association vice-president Pay Smyth said the group is seeking disclosure standards that will satisfy the public demand for disclosure while protecting personal information of company employees and first responders.

“This is by no means a PR exercise,” Smyth told the Calgary Herald. “We are treading new ground here. Industry recognizes that Canadians have the right and the need to know and we’re going to make sure they have access to information.”

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Since DeSmog Canada broke the story two weeks ago that Kinder Morgan publicly released its emergency oil spill plans for the Trans Mountain pipeline in Washington State while withholding or severely redacting the exact same plans in B.C., there's been a firestorm of activity on the topic.

The story has now been covered by the Globe and Mail, the CBC and the Canadian Press, the issue was raised in the House of Commons this week and the president of Kinder Morgan and the chair of the National Energy Board (NEB) have been forced to respond.

Kinder Morgan and the NEB angered the B.C. government in January after ruling the company could keep spill response plans for the proposed oilsands pipeline secret due to "security concerns."

This week Kinder Morgan president Ian Anderson defended the company’s actions, saying the NEB did not demand disclosure of the plans.

“We in no way want to have this perceived lack of transparency around our emergency response plans as any indication of us wanting to hide anything or keep anything a secret,” Anderson said.

“There are very real security concerns that we have with respect to posting our full and complete plans where critical valves and critical access points to the system are delineated.”

Anderson elaborated that requirements for disclosure are different in Washington State.

In January the NEB ruled Kinder Morgan was not obligated to provide the plans despite multiple requests from the province of B.C., an intervenor in the federal Trans Mountain pipeline review process.

In a motion to the federal regulator, the province called Kinder Morgan’s redactions “excessive, unjustified and prohibitive.” B.C. added the withheld information “thwarts” their review of the pipeline expansion project and “precludes a thorough understanding of Trans Mountain’s [emergency management plan] by the Board and all intervenors.”

The release of the plans in Washington “renders inexplicable” Kinder Morgan’s insistence the information remain secret north of the border, B.C. argued. The fact emergency information is available in the U.S. “calls into serious question the legitimacy of Trans Mountain’s claim that what is presumably almost identical information ought…not to be disclosed,” the province told the NEB.

Victoria MP Murray Rankin raised the issue in the House of Commons on Feb. 23, saying:

"Kinder Morgan is allowed to keep its plans for oil-spill recovery secret from the people of Victoria and from all British Columbians — the very kind of plans that are routinely available across the border, in Washington state. This deplorable secrecy does no favour to the resource industry which depends upon social licence from first nations and from communities small and large trampled by a government that allows our resources to be sold at any price."

A spokesperson with the NEB said the federal regulator is considering making public emergency response plans mandatory for energy companies operating existing pipelines, the Canadian Press reports.

“Our chairman is not very happy that there’s a lack of transparency around these emergency response plans,” Darin Barter said. “Canadians deserve to have that information. There’s a public will for that information. Industry needs to find a way to make that information public.”

Barter added the NEB is not pushing for a legislative change around emergency plan disclosure requirements, but is seeking greater transparency from companies.*

* Correction February 25, 2015: This article has been corrected to show the NEB is not seeking a change in legislation but rather greater transparency from companies.

Image Credit: Trans Mountain

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