Earlier this summer, when the Quebec environmentalist Steven Guilbeault announced his Liberal candidacy for the Montreal riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie (currently held by the NDP), the Calgary Herald ran a headline saying “Justin Trudeau has found his Tzeporah Berman.”

Guilbeault is a household name in Montreal and much of Quebec. He co-founded one of Quebec’s leading environmental organizations, Équiterre, where he worked as senior director until November of 2018. Prior to that he was the Quebec bureau chief for Greenpeace from 2000 to 2007, and headed their climate and energy campaign for three years before that.

He has been a vocal opponent of oilsands expansion and new pipelines across Canada, including the Trans Mountain pipeline that would transport Alberta oilsands to Burnaby on the West Coast. He and the prime minister have agreed that Guilbeault will maintain his opposition to the pipeline while seeking to join the party that has staked so much of its political fortune on pushing it through.

Laurier-Sainte-Marie is five provinces away, but Guilbeault’s nomination for the Liberals has raised a lot of eyebrows in British Columbia. Trudeau clearly hopes Guilbeault will re-establish Liberal credibility in an environmental community that feels deeply betrayed; Conservatives are hoping the announcement will cement their own support among oilsands proponents elsewhere in the country; and Steven Guilbeault just wants “to move the needle.”

The Narwhal reached out to Guilbeault to discuss his decision to enter politics, why he chose the Liberals and the moral dilemmas of crafting climate policy in the world’s fourth-largest oil-producing nation.

The following interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

Back in 2001, you scaled the CN Tower for Greenpeace and unfurled a banner which read “CANADA AND BUSH: CLIMATE KILLERS.” Would that younger version of you be surprised that today’s version of you is running for office?

A friend of mine, many years ago, said this about me: He said that I was a radical pragmatic. In the sense that the path of change that you and I and many others are asking our society to do is pretty radical, from where we are to where we feel we have to be. But there’s also a part of me that understands there are constraints, and that it can’t happen overnight. And sometimes, you need to climb the CN Tower to make people pay attention to what’s happening, and sometimes you need to sit down with people who you may disagree with, may have different points of view, and maybe even different values, to try and find a common ground to move the needle a little bit.

I know some of my climate change colleagues say, you know, we need to move the needle much faster, and I totally agree with that. But when we go outside of the climate activist circle, it’s not that obvious. My mom lives in a pulp-and-paper town four hours northeast of Montreal. She gets climate change a little bit and her boyfriend does too, but they don’t get the emergency. I think we have to find a way to move that, but we have to do this by bringing alongside as many people as possible.

So I think the pragmatic part of me that was climbing the CN tower would understand what I’m doing now. I think.

What do you think you can do as a politician that you couldn’t do as an activist, and why join the Liberals?

Well there are a couple reasons I decided to run for the Liberals. In my view, and I could be wrong about this, but in my view, they’re the only party that can block the Conservative Party from becoming the next government. … I’ve heard some people say, well, we [the Greens or the NDP] could hold the balance of power in a minority Conservative government. Well, look at what that did [for] us when we had a minority conservative government. That’s when all the cutbacks started on efficiency, on climate change, on environmental education, let alone everything that had to do with immigration, minority rights, and so on.

When I look at what [the Liberals] have done, I had no problem rallying behind them. They’ve been a very active government on climate change in the last four years. We had no environmental or climate policies to speak of in 2015, and now we have a whole bunch of them.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Is there so much more work that needs to be done? Absolutely. Am I pissed because of the pipeline? Yes. But when I look at everything that’s happened, I know that I can contribute to help them be more, and we can go even faster. And that’s what I’m hoping I can do, if I’m elected and if the Liberals form the next government.

I was on stage with Rachel Notley when she launched her climate leadership plan, and many environmental groups, I remember Greenpeace and 350 were talking about “this historical moment,” and Pembina was there, and a bunch of other groups were on stage — we all knew that she wanted a pipeline! She’d said so many times. But we still supported her because we thought that this was a bit of a revolution in Alberta, and there was no chance on earth that we would get anything close to that with the Conservatives.

“Is it perfect? Of course not. Is there so much more work that needs to be done? Absolutely. Am I pissed because of the pipeline? Yes,” Guilbeault told The Narwhal. Photo: Valerian Mazataud / The Narwhal

In 2017, Bill McKibben wrote in The Guardian that Trudeau was “a disaster for the planet.” What would you say to him now?

I would tell him I admire his work, I’ve been a big fan of his since the publication of his book Hope, Human and Wild over 20 years ago. But I disagree with him, just like I disagree with George Monbiot [The Guardian’s environmental writer] when he says that Angela Merkel is the worst climate person on the planet because she hasn’t been doing enough on climate change. And somehow they’re putting Trudeau and Merkel on the same level as people like Harper and Trump. To me, to paint everything in such black and white contrast — I mean if we were to ask which government of the world is doing a good job, they would say no one. And I understand, I think we can say that no one is doing a good enough job. But to say that they’re doing nothing because they’re not doing everything is overly simplistic.

Yes, it’s a good rallying cry to mobilize activists. But I’ve been doing lots of public engagements over the last 20 years, every year I speak to three to five thousand people. It’s been my experience that this type of message, if you’re trying to convince people who aren’t convinced, it doesn’t work. They change the channel. They say, ‘these people, you can’t talk to them.’

“I think we can say that no one is doing a good enough job. But to say that they’re doing nothing because they’re not doing everything is overly simplistic.”

The moral clarity of climate change is so stark, it’s completely unforgiving; but that comes crashing into democracy, which is founded on the need to compromise – 

And the fact that not everybody is following the issue as closely as we are, and I think we tend to lose sight of that because we tend to talk to ourselves.

But is that an inherent characteristic of activism? Is it possible to be an activist and really push society to change as fast as possible, while acknowledging the need for compromise?

I think it’s a human characteristic. We tend to talk and hang out with people who have similar views as we do. We don’t like to get our views or values confronted too much. So the business people do that, and the trade union people do that, and we do it too. So it’s not something that’s specific to activism.

Throughout B.C., there’s this near-universal sense of betrayal amongst the environmental community over Trans Mountain. It’s reached a point where the Trudeau memes you see coming out of Vancouver have become a perfect mirror image of the ones emanating from Calgary. Both sides see him as a pawn of the other.  So what would your message be to the environmental community out here?

I know many of the activists. I understand their frustration and their anger. I get it. I’ve been trying to tell them — and it’s not easy, and I understand it — but they should not let their anger cloud their judgement. If the Conservatives win the next election, then the $30 billion that we have for transit across the country, I don’t think it’s staying. The $20 billion that’s going to be invested in green infrastructure, gone. The $2.5 billion for clean technology, gone. The money for purchasing electric vehicles, gone. New and better environmental impact assessment and public consultation? We clearly know where the oil industry and the conservative forces of Canada are on this. This is a very clear example of where the Trudeau government stood their ground and said no to changes that were clearly written by the oil industry. If the Conservatives come in, this is also gone. Carbon pricing, obviously it’s gone. So, someone is going to tell me that all these things don’t matter?

At the risk of putting words in your mouth, do you feel the environmental community has trouble giving credit where it’s due?

Yes, I do, and I understand why. I’m putting myself in their shoes, and if instead of Trans Mountain we were talking about Energy East, and if the federal government instead of investing in Trans Mountain would have invested in Energy East, I think I would be very angry right now. I think I’d be very unhappy. And I don’t know, would I be running for the Liberals if that happened? It’s a really good question. So I get it. But I’m asking them to think long and hard about what the alternative is …

It’s an emotional discussion, and I get that. You know, it’s always angered me — when you sit across the table from someone and they say well can we have a rational, unemotional discussion about this? Dude! You can’t! What are you talking about?  It’s the future of our planet, and what kind of planet will I leave to my kids, and you want me to have an unemotional conversation about it? Forget it. That doesn’t mean I have to lose my judgement and my emotions have to take over everything. So I would never ask my colleagues to leave their emotions at the door.

Guilbeault, one of the founders of Quebec environmental group Equiterre, says he’s not going into politics to “play some political game.” Photo: Valerian Mazataud / The Narwhal

Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott went through this door before you, and it didn’t go so well. Why do you think it’ll go differently for you?

I don’t know either Jody Wilson-Raybould or Jane Philpott. What I can say for myself is I have 20 years of experience working on public policy around climate change, as an activist, not as someone in a political party. I understand we need to compromise to be able to move forward sometimes. I’m going in there knowing there’s no way I’m going to win 100 per cent of my battles 100 per cent of the time. And I’m hoping to win enough battles that, at the end of this four-year period, if all goes well, I can say I’ve contributed positively to the trajectory of where my country is going. That’s my hope, but I’m going in there with no illusions.

I’m envisioning a scenario where you win your seat in October, the Liberals win a majority government, the lawsuits against Trans Mountain are defeated and construction begins in earnest. Now the biggest environmental protest in Canadian history takes place on Burnaby Mountain, and you are part of the government that has to confront it. That’s a pretty awkward scenario, no?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played that scenario in my head in the last few months. Which is why I felt it was necessary for me to be crystal clear with the prime minister and the party regarding my position on this. I was against [Trans Mountain] a few weeks ago, I’m still against it today, and I will be against it tomorrow and in the months to come. I told him I disagreed and I said it publicly. So I imagine it’s going to be a very uncomfortable moment, if that scenario as you described it happens. By making this decision I’ve accepted that I may end up in that situation. I’ve seen a number of political commentators say that me expressing my disagreement with the pipeline publicly might come with a political cost to my career. If so, so be it. I couldn’t see a scenario where I would change my mind. I’m not going into politics to simply play some political game. I’m going there to try and continue making progress on the issue I’ve been working on for the last 25 years.

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 federal government is expected to announce the details of Canada’s national climate plan Friday, Dec. 9 at a high-profile gathering of First Ministers in Ottawa.

The details of the climate plan, which amount to a balance sheet of the nation’s carbon emissions, are critical to evaluating the federal government’s recent decisions to approve major fossil fuel projects in light of Canada’s international climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

“To have confidence in this plan’s ability we need to see credible accounting,” Catherine Abreu, executive direction of Climate Action Network Canada, said.

Trudeau has garnered significant criticism for his recent approvals of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Enbridge Line 3 replacement, both of which invite increased production in the Alberta oilsands, Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

In September the federal government approved the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal on the B.C. coast, a project that is expect to be the single largest point source of emissions in the country.

These approvals — and the increase in emissions they entail — have raised questions about the government’s ability to meet its climate targets.

Under the Paris Agreement Canada pledged to reduce emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“We know the 2030 target is the one that is top of mind for ministers,” Erin Flanagan, director of federal policy for the Pembina Institute, said. “It’s the one that [Environment and Climate Change] Minister McKenna is referring to when she says we’ll meet or exceed our climate commitments.”

Canada, unfortunately, has a long history of signing up for targets and an equally long history of not meeting them, Flanagan said.

“In fact, Canada’s best reporting through its biennial report indicates we’re a long way off from achieving those goals,” she said. “The report is quite bullish on fossil fuel development.”

By its own accounting the federal government anticipates Canada will emit 814 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030. To meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, Canada must limit that number to 524 Mt.

Flanagan said the federal government has yet to release an updated plan that incorporates recent climate efforts, like the introduction of a national carbon tax, the phaseout of coal power plants and provincial climate plans, into the overall emissions accounting.

A recent analysis done by EnviroEconomics finds that climate progress made under Trudeau’s leadership will help close but not eliminate that emissions gap. The report estimates that by 2030 Canada will overshoot its 2030 target by 152 Mt (or slightly less if international carbon offset credits are used).

But those calculations are based on what can be gleaned from provincial and federal plans announced so far and not necessarily what the federal government has in store.

On Friday Trudeau will meet with ministers and provincial and territorial premiers to discuss the details of what Trudeau has called an “ambitious and achievable plan” to meet 2030 targets.

The specifics have up to this point remained elusive.

Much-Anticipated Details of Canada’s #ClimatePlan to Be Revealed at First Minister’s Meeting. Maybe. https://t.co/7b11biMXJP #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 8, 2016

Steven Guilbeault, senior director of Équiterre, said the government must show its work.

“Without a balance sheet there is no way to know if this plan is delivering on what it says it does,” he said.

“What is enabling Canada’s emissions to go down? Why are they going up? To be able to adjust that plan over time and to have a genuine understanding and reassurance that we do have a plan that will put us on a path towards emissions reduction is needed for credibility,” Guilbeault said.

“Without the plusses and minuses it’s impossible for us to say whether premiers and the Prime Minister have delivered on that plan.”

This week the Canadian Press reported internal sources said the federal government will not, as expected, release detailed information regarding the country’s greenhouse gas inventory.

Minister McKenna responded to the reports, telling the CBC that Canada will indeed release an in-depth plan.

"We will show how we're going to meet our 2030 targets — what measures we've taken, what additional measures we will be taking to meet the target," McKenna said.

"You will see a specific plan. You will see, in each sector, what we're doing to reduce emissions. You'll see what investments we're making. You'll see how we're working with Indigenous communities, in particular in the north, where they have specific concerns about diesel but also about adaptation."

“We know Friday is not the end of the story,” Dr. Louise Comeau, director of climate change and energy solutions with the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, said.

Wrinkles in the climate framework as they relate to financial arrangements for green infrastructure, low carbon economy funding and equivalency agreements, which aim to standardize accounting of efforts made from province to province, will need to be ironed out moving forward, Comeau said.

Dale Marshall, climate campaigner with Environmental Defence, said he’s confident the ministers’ meeting will end with a climate agreement.

“I think there is high likelihood we’ll get an agreement,” he said.

“The federal government has spent since the last First Ministers’ Meeting in March, coordinating with the provinces, meeting with working groups and signed a number of agreements that had the signon of the country, like the carbon price, within the pan-Canadian framework.”

“Most people are feeling positive that we’re going to have a pan-Canadian framework agreed to by most if not all of the provinces and territories.”

Catheine Abreu said it’s important to ensure what is decided now, will remain relevant to 2030 and beyond.

“What we want to see on Friday is a commitment that the federal government and provinces commit to collaborate on moving forward.”

Abreu added more in-depth discussion is needed on crafting a workable accountability mechanism to ensure governments at all levels are keeping to their targets.

In addition the commitment made under the Paris Agreement isn’t just to limit emissions to 2030 but to strengthen targets every few years moving forward, Abreu said.

Canada committed to complete decarbonization by the end of the century and to work to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Abreu said Canada needs top-notch measuring, reporting and verification systems to not only establish emission reduction policies and regulations, but to gradually improve them over time.

“We have to totally or almost totally decarbonize our economy,” Guilbeault said. “Really 2030 isn’t the end.”

Image: Justin Trudeau and First Ministers at a March meeting in Vancouver. Photo: Prime Minister's Photo Gallery

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.

Montreal Mayor Denise Coderre announced Thursday the city's formal opposition to TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline. The 4,600-kilometer west-to-east oil pipeline project would see 1,600 kilometres of new pipe built along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and in New Brunswick.

"We are against it because it still represents significant environmental threats and too few economic benefits for greater Montreal," Coderre said in a press conference.

Groups opposed to the 1.1 million barrels-a-day project, which is significantly larger than TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, welcomed the announcement.

“Today, 82 municipal counsellors, representing 3.9 million citizens in the greater Montreal region, have issued a resounding ‘no’ to the Energy East project and to TransCanada Corporation,” Steven Guilbeault, Senior Director at Équiterre, said in a media release.

Coderre’s announcement came after 82 municipalities comprising the Communauté Municipale de Montréal (Montreal Metropolitan Community) voted this morning on whether to approve or oppose the project. Energy East’s proposed route would go through the northern municipalities of the greater Montreal-area.

“We’re really happy,” Audrey Yank, spokesperson for Montreal-based citizens-group Coalition Vigilance Oleoducs told DeSmog Canada. “It feels like a another small victory to give us hope.”

“TransCanada is asking us to bear all the risks of Energy East in exchange for very small benefits,” Yank said.

Energy East has faced stiff opposition in Quebec for over a year now. TransCanada’s plan to build an export tanker terminal in Quebec near the calving waters of endangered beluga whales was met by public outcry. Even Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, who is not an Energy East opponent, suggested publicly TransCanada should look some place else for its terminal.

In the face of growing Quebec public opposition to the pipeline, TransCanada scrapped plans for building a terminal anywhere in Quebec last November.

But by canceling plans to build a terminal in Quebec, selling the project to Quebecers on the basis of economic benefits has become difficult. The Montreal Metropolitan Community conducted public consultations on Energy East last fall and the majority of those who participated were against the project.

In a 2015 poll, 57 percent of Quebecers expressed their opposition to Energy East.

Montreal is the first major city to come out against the project to transport oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen across the country from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick. Winnipeg and Ottawa also sit along Energy East’s purposed route, but neither has shown the same degree of opposition as Montreal as of yet.

Ottawa-resident Mike Fletcher is hoping this will change soon.

“Ottawa has more risk and potentially less benefit than Montreal from this horrible proposal. The pipe through Ottawa is used, as opposed to proposed new pipe in Montreal,” Fletcher told DeSmog Canada.

“But so far Ottawa's reaction has been mixed. We are glad that the City will produce a letter of comment to the National Energy Board, but most of our municipal elected officials need to square up against Energy East,” Fletcher said. The 3,000 kilometres of the proposed pipeline situated west of Quebec is an existing natural gas line TransCanada plans on converting to oil.

Fletcher has played a key role in local group Ecology Ottawa’s campaign against the Energy East pipeline over the last two years. Ecology Ottawa was one of several environmental organizations targeted by a botched TransCanada PR campaign to undermine pipeline opponents in 2014.

Provincial governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick support the project. Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba have all been guarded in their statements about Energy East, neither denouncing nor fully endorsing their provinces acting as a thoroughfare for the pipeline.

Ontario’s energy regulator examined TransCanada’s application for Energy East and concluded the project was not in the best interest of Canada’s most populous province.

Audrey Yank from Coalition Vigilance Oleoducs is concerned that Montreal’s analysis of the Energy East project does not cover the potential impacts the pipeline could have on climate change. 

“It appears the analysis does not address green house gas emissions. Climate change should be part of the analysis, especially after the Paris climate talks,” Yank said.

“We can’t build fossil fuels infrastructure that lasts 40 or 50 years if we need to get to a zero-carbon economy by 2050,” Yank told DeSmog Canada.

Montreal’s announcement comes amongst a flurry of protests and calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep his election promise to initiate new regulatory reviews of Energy East and Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline in B.C. that will include climate impacts, and stronger recognition of First Nations’ concerns.

Image Credit: Ville de Montréal via Flickr

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.

Recent Environment Canada reports show that the Harper administration does not have the policies in place necessary to meet Canada’s existing environmental commitments, which have already been criticised as being the feeblest in the industrialised world. For instance, Canada was the only country to weaken its climate target under the Copenhagen Accord, and has since become the only country to formally withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. 

“At a time when institutions such as the World Bank and the International Energy Agency are calling for more climate action it is disappointing to have so many countries still being reluctant to move forward,” said Wendel Trio, Director of the European-based Climate Action Network and lead investigator for the 2013 Climate Change Performance Index, “Canada is a strong example of this lack of willingness to improve climate policies.”

“Canada has become the poster child for climate inaction, which represents a really long fall from where we were less than a decade ago,” added Patrick Bonin, Lead Climate-Energy and Arctic Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. “It has been hard to watch the unraveling of a rational and reasonable approach to science, while at the same time seeing more devastating extreme weather impacts all around us, it just makes you wonder what it is going to take for this government to get it.”

“The world has had enough of Canada’s inaction on climate change," concluded Steven Guilbeault, Co-Founder and Senior Director of the Montreal-based NGO Equiterre, “It is clear that this government’s reckless fixation on the tar sands is going to cost us not only a safe and healthy future and economy for our children, but also our international credibility.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image Credit: Environmental Defence, Enbridge, EPA

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.

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

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