On Wednesday the province of B.C. granted final approval for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. Exactly one year earlier B.C. announced its official opposition to the pipeline in a final submission to the National Energy Board.

In that final submission B.C. said the pipeline posed unacceptable oil spill risks to the province’s land and water.

Since 2013 B.C. has upheld five conditions that must be met for a pipeline project to receive provincial support. Marine and oil spill response capabilties are two of those conditions.

“We have not at this time seen evidence in the NEB process that those conditions have been met,” B.C. environment minister Mary Polak told the press last year.

Now, one year later, B.C. has reversed its position and thrown its support behind the oil pipeline project.

What has happened in the meantime to justify the reversal of position? One thing that’s for sure is Kinder Morgan did not submit more detailed oil spill response plans.

Emma Gilchrist and I discuss.

Image: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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It has been two weeks since the Nathan E. Stewart, a U.S.-based fuel barge tug, struck ground and sank near Bella Bella, B.C., contaminating the harvest waters of the Heiltsuk First Nation with an estimated 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

During that time coastal residents have watched with dismay as spill response efforts have been hampered repeatedly by unfavourable weather, failed spill containment and even one incident where a spill response ship took on water and itself began to sink.

But the ongoing failure to contain and clean up the spill has been witnessed most closely by members of the Heiltsuk First Nation, who have been on the frontlines of the spill response effort since day one.

Jess Housty, member of the Heiltsuk tribal council, told DeSmog Canada the spill has put much of her community’s regular life on hold, thrusting many individuals into the unfamiliar territory of disaster response.

“That’s been one of the great challenges for us — as a nation we have no particular capacity and expertise around spill response,” Housty said, saying that hasn’t stopped members of her community from stepping in to help response teams from the Canadian Coast Guard and the Western Canadian Marine Response Corporation.

Housty said community members are working on every aspect of spill response from wildlife monitoring to ecological sampling to maintaining and preparing oil spill booms.

The Nation is currently crowdfunding for support to hire experts to continue sampling and monitor environmental and human health impacts of the spill.

“We’re working in a kind of incident command system that makes objective sense but is certainly not a system that reflects our values and the way we would operate and govern a process like this,” Housty said.

“There’s a lot we don’t know. We’re not engineers or spill response technicians.”

“We’re fishermen, we’re harvesters, we’re mariners, we’re people who love the place we come from.”

Heiltsuk crews gather absorbent materials. “We haven’t known how long this process will carry on. I still don’t know how long it will carry on,” Jess Housty said. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Diesel sheen seen on the beach of Athlone Island on October 23. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

The Nathan E. Stewart, owned by Texas-based Kirby Corporation, sits grounded near Gale Pass. Photo: April Bencze

Poor weather conditions have prevented containment booms, shown here stopping the spread of contaminants from the tug, from staying in place. Photo: Tavish Campbell and April Bencze

“Ninety per cent of our resources come from that area,” Russell Windsor said. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

On October 24, day twelve of the spill, containment booms broke apart on the beach. Photo: April Bencze

“One of the frustrating thing is some of the containment booms broke apart and you end up with what looks like soggy toilet paper all along the beach,” Jess Housty told DeSmog Canada. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of containment booms and absorbent materials, Housty said. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

“We have no great sense of what is still in open water,” Housty said when asked about diesel recovery rates.

“I can tell you how many garbage bags of sorbent pads have been hauled out of the water, but that doesn’t really give you any idea of how soiled they were and how much diesel they’ve picked up.”

She added, “My reports that I’ve been getting every day is they’re not particularly effective unless the diesel is concentrated enough for it to pick up.”

“It’s really hard to put a number to how much.”

Diesel sheen on the beach of Athlone Island. Photo: April Bencze

Prints can be seen alongside tattered sorbent. Photo: April Bencze

Heiltsuk trapper and fisherman Fred Reid. “I had a trapline in the area…have trapped in that area for 14 years,” Reid said. Reid added the region is critical for salmon, cockles, abalone, urchins, five species of clams and otters. “We were already devastated this year, I guess the temperature of the water, the seaweed never came back. It just never grew.” Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Heiltsuk crew continue to collect contaminated material October 25. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Diesel sheen can be seen spreading far beyond containment booms. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Diesel slick can be seen escaping a failed containment boom on October 22. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Poor weather has made it extremely difficult to keep containment materials in place. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Herring smelt seen around the sunken Nathan E. Stewart. The tug is still releasing fuel into surrounding waters. Photo: April Bencze

Herring are a species of traditional importance for the Heiltsuk First Nation.

“I think it’s really important for the wider world to understand this isn’t just an environmental issue; it’s not just an ecological disaster,” Housty said.

“It is that — don’t get me wrong. But what has been violated is not just the environment. It’s also about food security, it’s our certainty that we can maintain our trade relationship with our relatives in other communities.”

Housty said her community has lost its certainty that they can feast and conduct ceremony with traditional foods.

“And there is a huge ceremonial loss because the things we hold sacred have been violated by this. So for our community, this is not just about cleaning up an environmental disaster, it’s about our whole certainty that we can be Heiltsuk and practice the fullness of our identity in the way we did before.”

“And to have that certainty taken away has introduced a grief into our community that is going to take a very long time to heal.”

The Nathan E. Stewart resting along the rugged reef, an area rich in biological diversity. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

The crumpled base of the Nathan E. Stewart. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Rich marine life, such as these colourful anemones, surround the sunken tug. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Photographers survey the wreckage. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Sorbent pads on the waters of Gale Pass. Photo: Tavish Campbell and April Bencze.

“We have several different types of containment booms deployed and sorbent pads deployed as well to try to pick up some of the diesel sheen but as you may have been following we have had really difficult weather conditions,” Housty told DeSmog Canada.

“Four of the last five days we’ve had to stand down small vessels because it’s too challenging for us to operate out there.”

Gale Pass with a trailing line of sorbent pads. Photo: Tavish Campbell and April Bencze

A transient orca passes by clean up crews on October 24. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

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Kinder Morgan’s proposal to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline has failed to meet British Columbia’s standards when it comes to marine and land spill response plans, according to the province’s submission provided to the National Energy Board (NEB) Monday.

Environment Minister Mary Polak told reporters the province outlined five conditions that must be met to receive the province's support for any oil pipeline in its submission to the National Energy Board. She said two of those conditions, pertaining to marine and land spill response, have not been met.

“Today we are putting forward our final submission to the National Energy Board hearings on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion,” Polak said.

“You will see once again our five conditions outlined. We see those as our basis for defending British Columbia’s interests in terms of environment, but also First Nations and benefits to British Columbia.”

“We have not at this time seen evidence in the NEB process that those conditions have been met,” she said.

Polak added B.C. has received encouragement from both government and industry leaders for its decision to uphold the five conditions.

Although not all levels of government have expressed support for the province’s position.

Thomson Nicola Regional District Chair John Ranta expressed disappointment the government is “turning its back” on the project which he says would benefit communities along the pipeline route.

“Billions of dollars were expected to be spent, employing thousands of people during the construction phase,” Ranta told a local radio station in Merritt. “It surprises me a project of this magnitude would be rejected by the provincial government.”

Minister Polak defended B.C.’s position, saying, “I think perhaps Mr. Ranta is forgetting the basis upon which we are providing this submission to the NEB.”

“This is about the NEB process and based on the evidence within the NEB process,” she said.

“We have seen that the company has been vocal in saying they believe they can meet our five conditions,” Polak stated, adding, “they are welcome to work towards that.”

Peter McCartney, climate campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, said his organization is “cautiously optimistic” about B.C.’s submission to the NEB. "Of course they have their conditions laid out but if you read through their submission they say if these conditions are met, they will approve the pipeline," added. 

“I think it’s a good sign that the B.C. government recognizes a spill on our coast would be disastrous,” he said. “We’ll see what Kinder Morgan comes up with, if they even do come up with a proper spill response plan in the eyes of the government.”

As DeSmog Canada first reported, Kinder Morgan refused to release full spill response plans to the B.C. government, citing safety concerns. The company released those same spill response plans in full to the public in the U.S. for segments of the Trans Mountain pipeline network that cross the B.C.-Washington border.

Beyond oil spill concerns, McCartney said B.C. has no condition to address the climate impact of pipelines. 

“Even if that oil makes it to Asian markets without spilling into the Salish Sea it’s going to spill into the atmosphere via greenhouse gas emissions.”

Adam Scott from Environmental Defence said the current regulatory system doesn’t take the risks pipelines post to Canadians and environment seriously enough.

“The National Energy Board is increasingly seen by Canadians as a rubber stamp for the oil industry,” Scott said in a statement. “The NEB for too long has only asked how to get projects built. Instead, a reformed pipeline review process must first ask if these projects are in the best interest of Canadians.”

During the federal election Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Liberals would overhaul the National Energy Board review process by making it more evidence-based. Trudeau said a new revamped process would be put in place and that ongoing reviews, such as for the Trans Mountain pipeline, would start fresh under a new, more robust system.

However, in November Natural Resources Jim Carr announced ongoing oil pipeline reviews will continue on under the current regime, adding that changes may retroactively apply to ongoing reviews if and when they are implemented at the National Energy Board level.

Scott said the federal government is “backtracking on its election promise” but the final decision regarding the fate of the pipeline rests with cabinet.

“Any meaningful review has to investigate if energy projects will undermine Canada’s policy goals like promises made in Paris to cut carbon pollution,” he said. “It also means listening to the best available science, such as the recent NAS study on the safety risks of diluted bitumen.”

The Tsleil-Waututh First Nation is currently engaged in a legal challenge of the National Energy Board review process. The nation argues the process has been compromised by a number of “procedural errors” and the government has failed to meet its duty to consult with First Nations.

The proposed pipeline expansion would increase the line’s capacity from 300,000 to 750,000 barrels of oil per day and could quadruple the number of oil tankers in the Burrard Inlet, from five to more than 20 each month. 

Eugene Kung, staff counsel with West Coast Environmental Law, said he is “pleased the province has recognized that this project doesn’t meet their five conditions.”

Kung is a representative for the Tsliel-Waututh First Nation in the NEB hearings and is also counsel for the Tsliel-Waututh Sacred Trust Initiative, the branch of government tasked with fighting the Trans Mountain expansion.

Kung added that beyond marine and terrestrial spill response, there are two additional conditions that have yet to be met by Kinder Morgan.

The first condition, that the project go through an environmental assessment process, has yet to be met, according to Kung.

“It’s an open question whether the NEB process as it currently stands would fulfill that first condition given how widely criticized that process has been including by the province,” Kung said.

Kung added the fifth condition which pertains to First Nations rights needs further discussion.

“Based on where the state of Canadian law on aboriginal rights is today and in particular the practical requirements for consent as set out the in Chilcoltin decision — combined with the Tsliel-Waututh and other Fist Nations well-grounded and well-founded rejection of the project — makes it difficult for a linear project like a pipeline to meet all those conditions.”

“It’s hard to imagine those conditions being met if the aboriginal law rights and title requirements do have to be met because that clearly hasn’t happened,” he said.

“I haven’t seen anything from the minister on their position on that.”

This article was updated January 11, 2016 at 4:00pm to include comments from Eugene Kung.

Image: Environment Minister Mary Polak via Flickr

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A lack of reliable scientific information about what happens when crude oil is spilled into rivers or the ocean and a fragmented system of response plans is hindering Canada’s efforts to prevent and clean up oil spills, says a major report by the Royal Society of Canada.

The lengthy report was written by a panel of seven experts on oil chemistry, behaviour and toxicity.

Case studies, including B.C.’s Pine River pipeline break and the April leak of fuel oil into Vancouver’s English Bay, showed delays in response time were common, with causes ranging from poor communication and coordination among government agencies to lack of preparedness.

But the main problem was an absence of reliable scientific data.

“There is a critical need for a coordinated and integrated database of information relevant to the assessment of risk of oil spills in Canada,” says the report.

Groups do not always share information and response scenarios can be unrealistic, according to the panel, which is recommending the formation of a joint government, industry and academic research program to come up with a national database to provide accurate information when an oil spill occurs.

“There is an urgent need in Canada to develop science-based guidance and protocols for oil spill impact, risk assessments and clean-up,” the report says

Sometimes the quality of existing data is questionable, the panel found. For example, pipeline leaks usually take hours to discover rather than minutes, so scenarios based on instant identification of a problem are unrealistic.

Panel chair Kenneth Lee, oceans and atmosphere director at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Perth, Australia, said in an interview that Canada has relatively stringent rules and processes, but they would be improved by a coordinated approach to research in key areas, such as the behaviour of different types of oil, pre-spill baselines, new techniques and the effectiveness of spill response options.

Lee would not speculate on the cost of a national research program or how it would be put together

“We are scientists so we come up with the recommendations. The policies and putting things in place are not our decision,” he said.

Behaviour of Diluted Bitumen Needs More Research

An area pinpointed as needing more research is spill behaviour of diluted bitumen, the tar diluted with condensate that flows from the Alberta oilsands to the B.C. coast.

“It is not a product that is the same every day,” said Lee.

“Depending on the chemistry, some sinks and some floats even under the same conditions. There are a lot of complex interactions and we need that kind of data to make decisions,” he said.

The report acknowledges that heavy oils and dilbit present problems as they do not easily evaporate or dissolve in water.

“Thus their potential damage to the environment, waterfowl and fur-bearing animals is greater. Clean-up of heavy oils and bitumen is extremely difficult for both marine and inland spills because of their specific gravity, viscosity flash point properties and high asphaltene content,” the report states.

Weather and wave action will also affect the behaviour of the oil.

“Every oil spill is different,” Lee said.

The report points out that more research is needed to look at the effect of oil spills on sensitive ecosystems such as Arctic waters and wetlands and the effectiveness of spill response in remote areas.

“Investigations of oil spill effects in Arctic Canada must include collaboration with indigenous peoples to ensure that traditional knowledge is incorporated into our overall understanding of the risks of oil spills in northern locations,” it says.

Sociological factors should also be part of the equation because of public concerns over returning beaches or rivers to their pre-spill state.

Spills should be used as an opportunity to gain information for the national database and that means funding and teams of researchers should be in place and ready to go before the spill occurs, said Lee, who is also advocating for conducting research through small controlled spills.

With Canada producing more than 3.7 million barrels of oil every day, there is always the risk of a spill and the panel suggests the focus should be on prevention of large spills and rapid and effective response to smaller ones.

The questions that need to be asked are whether the risks are acceptable and whether they can be handled and to make those decisions accurate scientific data is needed, Lee said.

The RSC expert panel report was commissioned by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.

Image: Western Canada Marine Response Corporation

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Late Saturday afternoon, Transport Canada officially cleared the Marathassa to leave Canadian waters. As it slowly moves out of the Salish Sea, the bulk carrier leaves angry mayors, a combative coast guard, a distrustful public and many, many questions in its wake.

Even U.S. authorities are anxiously looking north wondering if Canada knows anything about marine oil spill response. 

What we know about this spill is important, but there’s a lot more we don’t know, and might never know, about what happened in English Bay.

We Don't Know the Total Volume of Fuel Spilled, and Maybe Never Will 

In his first press conference after the April 8th spill, Commander Roger Girouard of the Canadian Coast Guard stated that the volume of the spill was 2,700 litres, or approximately 17 barrels of bunker C fuel. He reiterated this point several times at media appearances and press conferences in the weeks following the spill. Federal Industry Minister James Moore echoed his comments.

Vancouver City Manager Penny Ballem disagrees. In her presentation to Vancouver City Council after the spill, she quoted officials saying that figure is incorrect and the real volume is likely in the range of 3,000 – 5,000 litres spilled.

Similarly, there’s the reality that even the most successful oil spill cleanup efforts only recover a small portion of the oil. In 2010, Gerald Graham, president of Worldocean Consulting, a marine oil spill prevention and response planning firm based in British Columbia, told LiveScience.com that recovering between 10 and 15 per cent of conventional oil spilled in seawater is a ‘best case’ scenario.

Except bunker C fuel — the product spilled in English Bay — is not conventional: it is denser, more viscous and heavier than conventional crude oil. Unlike conventional crude oil, bunker C fuel is not certain to float on water surfaces, nor does it weather and dissolve as easily. On average only five to 10 per cent of the bunker C fuel will evaporate in the first 24 hours after a spill. Instead it breaks into tarballs and settles lower in the water column, sometimes as far down as one to three metres below the surface.

On April 9, Commander Girouard reported that cleanup crews had recovered approximately 1,400 litres of the oil spilled. A few days later, a statement from Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas stated that cleanup crews recovered 80 per cent of fuel spilled within 36 hours after the spill.

If these figures are correct, then without counting the oil which washed up on Vancouver and West Vancouver beaches or the large ‘bathtub ring’ of bunker fuel oil encircling the Marathassa, the Coast Guard should have recovered approximately 2,200 litres of spilled oil in the first 36 hours (based on lower spill estimates). This is definitely possible, but extremely unlikely given past precedent of what constitutes a ‘best case’ cleanup.

But if total spill volumes are incorrect — as City Manager Ballem and others suggest — there is a lot of oil still unaccounted for.

It is worth noting that in the first 24 hours after the spill, oil traveled 12 kilometres to foul at least 10 beaches in Vancouver, West Vancouver and North Vancouver.

Would an Operational Kits Coast Guard Station Have Helped? Who Knows

In 2013, the federal government closed the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, consolidating operations with the Coast Guard Station in Delta, B.C. Both the City of Vancouver and the province of B.C. publicly objected to the closure, citing its importance in oil spill and disaster response efforts.

“The Kitsilano Coast Guard base has been one the most important public safety resources in and around the City of Vancouver, responding to over 300 calls each year. Vancouver is one of the busiest harbours in North America and has depended on robust search and rescue services that are professionally-trained and fully-resourced by the federal government. In the event of major freighter, cruise ship, or aviation emergency, we remain very concerned that the Kitsilano closure will put many additional lives in danger.” – Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson

Both Commander Girouard and Federal Industry Minister James Moore stated they believe the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station being open would have made no difference in the cleanup of this spill. Speaking to the media on April 12, Girouard said the station was never manned with environmental response experts, and would not have been called on in this scenario. James Moore echoed his comments.

According to Commander Girouard, the Kitsilano Coast Guard station had less than 100 metres of oil-absorbing booms, and that they were likely too old to be useful.

Retired Coast Guard Captain Tony Toxopeus, who served at the base, disagrees. So does Mike Cotter, General Manager of the Jericho Sailing Centre, which is located next door to the shuttered station. In an interview with CKNW’s Shane Woodford, Captain Toxopeus confirmed that the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station had two ships (a pollution response vehicle and an Osprey cutter), along with oil spill response equipment and staff trained in pollution response.

At the same time, an operational Kitsilano Coast Guard Station would have greatly reduced the response time for the spill.

As it stands, it took the Coast Guard more than three hours from the time the spill was reported to send a ship to investigate, a further four hours to set up an absorbent boom and a total 12 hours to completely encircle the Marathassa in a containment boom. In an open letter to Minister Moore, Mr. Cotter said:

“Had the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station remained open, the Osprey could have been on scene within 10 minutes in direct contact with the boater who originally reported the spill just after 5 pm on April 8. Her crew would’ve assessed the scene (the boater says he could tell the fuel was coming from the aft section of the source ship) and activated the PRV crew who would’ve been on scene and commenced spill containment within an hour of the report.”

Late last week, the federal government announced that it would also be closing the Vancouver office for its Marine Communications and Traffic Services. Now everything from marine safety communications co-ordination with rescue resources, vessel traffic services and waterway management, broadcast weather and sail plan services for the entire south coast and most of Vancouver Island will be managed out of the Victoria office.

As the Globe and Mail recently reported, officials in Washington State have serious doubts about the Canadian government's ability to address oil spills in the Puget Sound. The Washington Department of Ecology told the state's Governor that "B.C. lacks authority over marine waters, and their federal regime is probably a couple decades behind the system currently in place in Washington State."

A U.S. maritime lawyer also said if the U.S. Coast Guard scored an eight or nine on a worldwide 10-point spill response scale, Canada would score a one or two. 

We Don’t Know Who is Responsible for Monitoring Burrard Inlet for Long-term Spill Impacts

To be clear, the Burrard Inlet and the Salish sea have not been pristine waterways for a long time. E.coli contamination regularly closes local beaches to swimming in the summer, and the waterway is a working port. All of that considered, Vancouver beaches attract millions of people every year, and many people fish its waters for recreation or subsistence.

On April 15, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans banned fishing for shellfish and groundfish in Burrard Inlet, citing concerns about the Marathassa spill. DFO calls the closure a precautionary measure, and gives no indication of when the fisheries may reopen.

The closure makes sense, of course. While the Marathassa spill was minor,  toxins from bunker C fuel can stay in the water for a very long time. A study done by U.S. Department of Fisheries scientists on a 2007 bunker C fuel spill in San Francisco harbour found the spill had decimated local herring stocks and left surviving fish with extensive birth defects and short life spans. This persisted for at least three years after the spill.

But Vancouver’s waters are different. According to Dr. Peter Ross, director of the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Pollution Research Program, there’s no baseline data for English Bay’s waters, nor is there a cohesive long-term monitoring program. Both of these deficiencies make it hard to measure long term impacts.

Since coastal waters fall under the purview of the federal government, it should be the responsibility of the DFO to monitor long-term impacts. But millions of dollars in cuts by the federal government have decimated DFO budgets, closing programs and leaving at least 50 scientists out of work. This included Dr. Ross, who used to run a marine toxicology program through DFO. It no longer exists.

The Vancouver Aquarium, the City of Vancouver and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have all collected water samples independently following the spill. Unfortunately, as Dr. Ross says, "There is no official clarity around who is to monitor the effects of a spill."

WWKMD? We Don’t Know What Kinder Morgan Would Do Differently

For all the opacity of the government response, one thing is crystal clear after the Marathassa spill: we could, and must, do better by these waters. As the National Energy Board considers approval of the Kinder Morgan TransMountain tanker and pipeline expansion, both parties could be learning from the Marathassa response and ensuring that future spill preparedness and response is truly ‘world-class.' But, as always, there’s a problem.

Namely, that Kinder Morgan refuses to publicly reveal any of its oil spill cleanup plans for Burrard Inlet — even though the company owns 50.9 per cent of Western Canada Marine Response Company, the lead party responsible for cleanup operations on the Marathassa spill and the primary subcontractor for any future oil spills on the B.C. south coast.

This leaves all levels of government in the dark about what might happen if the new twinned Kinder Morgan pipeline ruptures again (as it did in 2007), or one of the hundreds of new Aframax-sized tankers (40,000 tonnes larger than the Marathassa bulk carrier) leaks diluted bitumen into English Bay.

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Kinder Morgan, the company currently seeking permission to nearly triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline to carry Albertan crude to the west coast, has engaged in a protracted fight with the province of British Columbia in an effort to keep its oil spill response plans a secret.

The company alleges its motivation has to do with ‘security concerns’ although a look back at the to and fro with the province of B.C. paints a story of either incompetence or pure, defenseless hubris.

Either way, what Kinder Morgan is refusing to produce for B.C. and other intervenors in the pipeline review process, the company willingly disclosed south of the border for portions of the pipeline that extend to Washington State.

A read through the detailed spill response plans Kinder Morgan has in place for the U.S. shows just how far the company went to prove they can handle a pipeline spill. 

It also highlights how outlandish it is that Kinder Morgan has not released similarly-detailed plans to the province of B.C.

It is also troubling that Kinder Morgan expects the government of B.C. to consent to a massive pipeline expansion — the proposal calls for a twinning of the pipeline which would lead to a fivefold increase in tanker traffic — without adequate assurances the best available emergency plans are in place.

So, what did Kinder Morgan tell Washington State that it refuses to tell B.C.?

1. Details for every unique section of the pipeline

In its Emergency Management Plan (EMP) documents released to regulators in Washington State, Kinder Morgan provides detailed information about every individual section of the pipeline, including the thickness of the pipeline’s walls, where it crosses water, the location of shutoff valves, peak volumes and a ‘spill volume profile’ for each geographical 'zone' of the line.

A map from Kinder Morgan shows worst case scenario spill zones.

1. Worst case scenario plans for five individual zones

Based on previous spill data going all the way back to 1955, maximum flow rates and maximum shut-down response time, Kinder Morgan estimates what the worst case discharge might be for any given segment of the pipeline. The company uses these estimates to plan detailed spill response measures. It even calculates for elevation, adverse weather conditions, whether shut off valves are automated or manual and how these factors might help or hinder response efforts. The company also provides these details for storage tanks at terminals along the pipeline.

If that wasn’t enough, the documents show exactly how Kinder Morgan arrived at its estimates so the methodology can be evaluated independently.

1. Who exactly is responsible for spills in each individual location

Pipeline companies are obligated to obtain something called ‘mutual aid’ from spill response agencies and private companies expected to respond to a spill. Kinder Morgan lists every single company and agency it anticipates would respond to a spill from the Trans Mountain pipeline or terminals in Washington State. The company also lists ‘activation instructions’ outlining the steps to be taken in the event of a spill in order to draw upon the resources of their mutual aid partners.

Kinder Morgan also provided regulators with confirmation letters (example below) from numerous companies that agree to provide aid in the event of a spill. These letters include signatures from personnel at the managerial level providing the state with some assurance that response plans, equipment availability and other expectations have been previously discussed.

Kinder Morgan provided this letter of intent to regulators in Washington State to confirm NRC Environmental Services will provide spill response services. Kinder Morgan refused to supply the province of B.C. with similar letters of intent as part of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion review process.

Kinder Morgan refused to provide B.C. with the names of agencies to be notified in the event of an emergency, leaving the province to question if the company is relying on out-of-province first responders which could lead to lengthy response delays.

Without such information, B.C. argues Trans Mountain has no “ability to substantiate the assertions it has made” about spill response preparedness in its application.

A side by side comparison of primary response contractors documentation demonstrates the extent to which Kinder Morgan redacted information provided to B.C.

1. What will be cleaned up, where, with what, and who’s bringing it

Not only does Kinder Morgan list all of the individuals, departments, agencies and companies it will rely on in the event of a spill, but also documents the skills and equipment each of these responders would provide.

For instance, O’Brien’s Response Management can supply highly-qualified personnel like Incident Commanders and Safety Officers. The Centre for Toxicology and Environmental Health can provide 24/7 professional air monitoring and environmental sampling and can arrive via the company’s KingAir 200 airplane if necessary. The company BakerCorp. will deliver ten 21,000 gallon tanks to a spill site within 12 hours and has enough pumps and hose to move 6,300 gallons of oil per minute.

Kinder Morgan also lists what the pipeline carries — crude oil, synthetic crude, or diluted bitumen — so first responders know in advance what they’ll face in the event of a spill.

1. Detailed spill response timelines for each zone

Forty-eight hour timelines are presented for each of the potential spill zones outlining how much oil could be recovered in the event of a spill, what equipment and how many people it would take.

For example, for zone 1 in Bellingham, Kinder Morgan estimates it could have 22 people on site within two hours of a spill. In addition it figures that within two hours, it could have 4,000 feet of oil boom for oil spilled in water and the capacity to store 381 barrels of recovered oil. Within six hours, the company estimates 137 people would be on site, with a total of 41,150 feet of oil boom and the capacity to hold 2,953 barrels of recovered oil.

Excerpt from detailed spill response plans released to Washington State regulators by Kinder Morgan. No similar documents were released for spill response plans in B.C.

Kinder Morgan redactions “excessive, unjustified and prohibitive”

Despite providing this information to regulators in Washington State, Kinder Morgan argued that for personal, commercial or security reasons the company would not disclose similar details to B.C.

In a motion the province of B.C. told the National Energy Board that Kinder Morgan’s redactions are “excessive, unjustified and prohibitive.” The province added that the withheld information “thwarts” their review of the project and “precludes a thorough understanding of Trans Mountain’s EMP by the [National Energy] Board and all intervenors.”

The province also argues that disclosure of emergency plans south of the border “renders inexplicable” the company’s insistence that it keep the information secret in B.C.

“That fact calls into serious question the legitimacy of Trans Mountain’s claim that what is presumably almost identical information ought, for ‘personal,’ ‘security,’ or ‘commercial’ reasons, not to be disclosed.”

Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Puget Sound Field Guide by DeSmog Canada

Image Credit: Trans Mountain

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