By Peter O’Neil, Edmonton Journal August 13, 2012

OTTAWA  – The joint Canadian government panel studying Enbridge Inc.’s proposed $6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline won’t be able to fully assess a U.S. regulator’s findings that the company behaved like the Keystone Kops during the massive 2010 Kalamazoo River spill in Michigan.

The panel is refusing requests by interveners to have the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s devastating criticism of Enbridge’s performance to be tabled with the panel and entered into the public registry as evidence.

The panel said the NTSB’s findings can be raised only during the “oral questioning” period for the Northern Gateway hearings that begin this autumn and conclude in December.

However, the NTSB report won’t be viewed as reliable evidence and won’t be considered in the panel’s final ruling, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Annie Roy, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said the NTSB reports can only be used as an aid to cross-examination during the oral questioning period.

“An aid to cross-examination is generally not considered evidence and cannot be relied on for the truth of its content,” Roy said in an email.

The statement stunned one of the project’s top opponents, Haisla First Nation Chief Councillor Ellis Ross.

“The panel is supposed to be looking at potential adverse impacts from the project, including an accident,” said Ross, whose lawyer recently sent a letter to the panel calling on Enbridge to fully disclose Kalamazoo River spill information.

“Ignoring a significant analysis of a major pipeline accident involving the same proponent as Northern Gateway does not make any sense.”

A prominent critic of the oilsands pipeline proposal called on the panel and Enbridge to find a way to ensure the Kalamazoo River report is fully considered.

“If the NTSB Kalamazoo material is intentionally excluded from the panel’s considerations it is likely there will be no public acceptance of the fairness of the upcoming hearings,” said independent economist Robyn Allan, former chief executive officer of the Insurance Corporation of B.C.

The panel, operated by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, revealed its position in separate letters to two B.C. interveners who asked if they could submit as evidence the NTSB reports made public in July.

The panel responded that a witness cannot submit documents that weren’t prepared “under their direction and control,” since they couldn’t credibly answer questions about the documents “or otherwise confirm their accuracy.”

Ross said Enbridge would “go a long way” in showing good faith to First Nations and British Columbians by voluntarily submitting all its information on the Kalamazoo spill, including its evidence provided to the U.S. regulator.

Ross said Enbridge’s spill of an estimated 840,000 gallons of diluted bitumen crude into Michigan wetlands, a creek and the Kalamazoo River – enough to fill 120 tanker trucks, according to the NTSB – is directly relevant to B.C. concerns about Northern Gateway.

By Graham Thomson, Edmonton Journal August 14, 2012 6:27 AM

EDMONTON – It’s not the Rocky Mountains and it’s not the 773 rivers and streams in its path.

No, the biggest obstacle facing Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast is the one created by Enbridge itself: the giant hole in the company’s credibility.

The company inadvertently began making its credibility disappear by accidentally dumping more than three million litres of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010, causing the largest inland pipeline spill in United States history and creating an $800-million cleanup job that is still ongoing.

When the author of a recent U.S. government report into the spill called Enbridge employees the Keystone Kops of pipeline safety, the hole where the company’s reputation used to be became the size of an open-pit mine.

Enbridge turned it into the Grand Canyon of credibility gaps by initially refusing to accept full responsibility for the spill and by making vague comments about improving pipeline safety.

When B.C. Premier Christy Clark used the Kalamazoo spill to criticize Enbridge and, more importantly, to demand a “fair share” of Alberta’s oil wealth as insurance against a similar spill from Northern Gateway, Enbridge must have finally realized its integrity was becoming the big obstacle.

So the company is trying to get its credibility back.

Last week, it took out fullpage newspaper ads in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario presenting The Facts on Pipelines.

This week, the company’s chief executive, Pat Daniel, began making the case for the Northern Gateway pipeline that would pump 500,000 barrels a day of Alberta bitumen to Kitimat for shipment to Asia.

It’s an argument that’s been made before – a $6-billion pipeline that will create jobs and economic spinoffs, mainly for B.C. – but it’s one being presented with more passion than ever before, and with a hint of exasperation if not outright desperation.

On the decidedly pipeline friendly Dave Rutherford radio show Monday morning, Daniel admitted Enbridge has been on the losing side of the Northern Gateway debate, complaining that “everything we say sounds defensive and self-interested and on the other side everything they say is really taken as gospel.”

And then Daniel went on to sound defensive and self-interested by painting everyone who is questioning the safety and economy of the Northern Gateway pipeline as anti-oil “revolutionaries.”

“I think we’re facing a very strong, almost revolutionary movement to try to get off oil worldwide, and it creates a lot of passion and drive in those revolutionaries that are trying to change the environment in which we work,” said Daniel.

“They know that going after the end use – going after you and I when we drive our car, or they drive their car, or get on an airplane – won’t work. So they’re coming after what they consider to be the weak link in the whole process, and that’s the infrastructure part of it.”

There are indeed antipipeline advocates whose unrealistic goal is to shut down the oilsands. But there are also pipeline skeptics who are not anti-oil but anti-spill, who happily drive cars but who don’t see the need to pump Alberta’s bitumen through their province simply for shipment to Asia.

By Kelly Cryderman, Postmedia News; Calgary Herald August 13, 2012 8:46 AM

In her first 10 months as premier, Alison Redford’s government has initiated more than a dozen reviews, public consultations or inquiries to look at everything from how a new environmental monitoring system for the oilsands should work to medical service queue-jumping.

The latest announcement came in the wake of a spending controversy in the health-care system, in which a senior financial executive ran up an expense tab of almost $350,000 in four years.

Last week, associate minister Don Scott – responsible for accountability, transparency and transformation – was handed the task of identifying a better system of expense reporting for cabinet ministers and other senior government officials. That’s on top of Scott’s work reviewing freedom of information laws and legislation to protect whistleblowers.

“The premier has been very clear she wants to do business in a new way,” said Kim Misik, Redford’s press secretary.

“It’s not a public-relations exercise.

“She really wants to make sure that we have an accountable system.”

While task force meetings and town halls can contribute to the public dialogue and unearth hidden truths, critics argue they’re also a means of placating voter anger by delaying tough decisions on costly new programs or contentious issues.

Wildrose party deputy house leader Shayne Saskiw said the raft of studies ordered by Redford are no substitute for action.

Saskiw noted a month after Redford won the PC party leadership last fall, she created a property rights task force where MLAs travelled the province to consult with rural Albertans on a number of contentious land laws.

The result is a new property rights advocate and a promise to review more land legislation. The government insists it’s a solid first step, while the Wildrose says it’s just windowdressing and doesn’t address real concerns.

“You don’t need high-paid, fancy consultants travelling the province to know that property rights are important; you should just know from your constituents and talking to Albertans,” Saskiw said.

However, Mount Royal University political analyst David Taras said such reviews aren’t always simple political ploys – they can also lead to substantial policies. Redford, he said, can point to the MLA compensation review by retired Supreme Court justice John Major as an example of a scrupulous examination by a respected public figure. Taras noted the government accepted most of Major’s recommendations this year, although a legislature committee is still debating what kind of pension MLAs should receive.

Still, Taras acknowledged initiating such reviews “gives the government a breather” when the public is angry about issues such as MLA severance packages topping $1 million and MLAs paid extra for sitting on no-meet committees.

“It’s a way of taking the pressure off,” he said.

Other ongoing Redford government reviews and public consultations include: A judge-led inquiry with ? consultations this fall into “improper preferential access” to publicly funded medical services. The inquiry came after a scathing Health Quality Council of Alberta report in February.

– The retail market review committee – created last winter after electricity rates spiked to historic highs – continues to look at power prices for consumers, and has been granted a deadline extension to Sept. 5 due to the “complexity of this issue.”

– Elections Alberta is reviewing its own legislation after a furor arose this spring around the chief electoral officer’s contention he can’t, by law, release details of investigations into illegal political contributions.

The public is also awaiting a number of completed reports. They include recommendations from former University of Lethbridge president Howard Tennant about how a new environmental monitoring system for the province, including the oilsands, should be funded and governed, as well as the red-tape reduction task force, which is looking at how to improve the regulatory environment for small businesses.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Original source article: Raft of Tory reviews: Seeking transparency or delaying action?

By Jason Fekete, Postmedia News August 10, 2012

OTTAWA — As battles rage over the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines, governments and energy companies are eyeing other options for transporting oilsands crude to foreign markets, including by rail, a pipeline through the Northwest Territories and shipping more oil to Eastern Canada instead.

The political, economic and environmental stakes are enormous. Billions of dollars of investment are on the line but, as the Northern Gateway saga has shown, there are also plenty of potential pitfalls for governments and project proponents.

British Columbia’s demands for supporting the Enbridge Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline proposals — including receiving its “fair share” of the economic benefits from Alberta and Ottawa — are sparking uncertainty over the future of the projects, which would ship oilsands crude from northern Alberta to the West Coast.

In the U.S., the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oilsands crude from northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, has also turned into a political football.

President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada’s original Keystone XL permit application in January due to concerns about what pipeline construction and potential for spills could do to ecologically sensitive areas in Nebraska. The company has since reapplied for a presidential permit to reroute the controversial pipeline around some of the environmentally sensitive areas in Nebraska, with a decision expected by early 2013.

The prolonged pipeline disputes in B.C. and south of the border have governments and petroleum producers considering other options for getting oilsands crude to foreign markets like Asia, including alternative pipeline routes, moving more oil east (and then onto the U.S.) and shipping bitumen on the rails.

Ken Chapman, executive director of the Oil Sands Developers Group, an industry lobby organization, said the ongoing battles over the Northern Gateway and planned expansion to the Trans Mountain pipeline mean “every option” must be looked at from an economic, environmental and First Nations perspective.

“None of these are easy but all of them are worth investigation,” Chapman said. “They (oilsands developers) are always looking at options. Rail is becoming more and more of an attractive option.”

However, producers can’t move nearly as much product by train, he said, which means rail probably must be considered a supplement — not a complete alternative — to shipping oilsands crude by pipelines.

A recent report from Standard & Poor’s found a barrel of diluted bitumen is transported at a cost of $7 by pipeline, compared to $6 to $8 by rail.

The report also said rail has the potential to move crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast from Alberta in about one-fifth the time of pipelines, with the capital cost to expand rail infrastructure about one-tenth that of the cost of adding incremental pipeline capacity.

Amid the pipeline problems, Canadian National Railway, in response to customer demand, is moving crude oil (including pure bitumen) from Western Canada to markets across the country and the United States, including the U.S. Gulf Coast, and California. There are currently no shipments going to Canada’s West Coast ports for export partly due to a lack of infrastructure to unload crude oil from rail cars onto ships, the company said.

In 2011, CN moved approximately 5,000 cars of crude oil (there are between 550 and 680 barrels of oil per rail car, depending on type of product and car) and the company expects to transport more than 30,000 carloads of crude oil in 2012 to various North American markets, said company spokesman Mark Hallman.

Canadian Pacific Railway’s crude oil volumes are also rapidly increasing.

The company expected to grow its crude-by-rail market from 13,000 carloads in 2011 to 70,000 carloads by 2014 but, based on growing demand, now expects to reach that level a year earlier in 2013, including with shipments to northeastern U.S. and the Gulf Coast.

The company currently isn’t shipping any oilsands crude to the West Coast but it’s being explored, said CP spokesman Ed Greenberg.

“Movements of crude oil to the West Coast for export is something that continues to be developed. We have the infrastructure in place to respond to energy producers, but this is something the producers are driving so they will ultimately decide,” Greenberg said.

Northwest Territories Premier Bob McLeod mused last week the Alberta government should — given the problems with pipeline proposals in B.C. — consider a northern pipeline route that would transport landlocked oilsands crude up through the N.W.T. and to the Beaufort Sea, where it could be transported to Asia.

However, the prospect of an oilsands pipeline running through the N.W.T. to the Arctic is already rankling aboriginal groups who battled for years to get a seat at the table and fair stake in the proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline project that would run from the Beaufort Sea, through the Northwest Territories, and into Alberta.

Fred Carmichael, chairman of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, said a northern oil route would face huge backlash from environmentalists and aboriginal groups.

“They think there’s a battle with the Gateway pipe?” Carmichael told Postmedia News recently. “I tell you, there’d be one big battle here.”

Jack Mintz, director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, said the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain lines could lead to “significant sales to Asia” because the transportation costs of shipping the crude would be much more competitive.

“But if those get blocked, then it’s hard to see what other options right now there would be in terms of market diversification, like getting oil to Asia,” Mintz said.

Piping oilsands crude north through the N.W.T. is “a nice idea” but likely isn’t a viable option because winter would also pose a number of problems, including tankers getting through northern shipping lanes, he argued.

Transporting the product through an eastern pipeline to Central Canada and the Atlantic Provinces wouldn’t lead to true market diversification, he said, because most of the product would likely end up in the U.S.

Shipping bitumen by rail to B.C. won’t resolve a number of the lingering environmental concerns because there will still be worries about tankers spilling oil off the West Coast, he added.

“It won’t deal with the political disagreement,” he said.

The Harper government continues to trumpet the importance of diversifying Canada’s energy export markets beyond the United States and says new pipeline projects such as the Northern Gateway are critical for getting Canadian petroleum to Asia.

But Mintz said the federal government will likely be hesitant to push pipeline projects on British Columbians — who, polls show, are opposed to the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain lines — because the Conservatives will need the province’s support come the next federal election.

“You can have a number of seats in B.C. that could be affected, so what happens in terms of the actual politics in the end will be interesting,” he added.

David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said his group is focused on trying to get West Coast market access through the proposed Northern Gateway project and Trans Mountain expansion.

However, he said rail shipments of crude to the Gulf Coast, proposals to ship bitumen by rail to the West Coast and the possibility of an eastern pipeline system to get more Western Canadian crude to Central and Eastern Canada are all options either being pursued or examined.

“What we’re seeing is that the market can be quite creative in terms of looking at other potential opportunities,” Collyer said.

Pipelines to the West Coast remain the safest and most economical way to transport large amounts of crude, he said.

“Rail will certainly potentially play a role but it’s difficult to see it at the scale comparable to what pipelines can provide,” he said.

Petroleum producers also “have to be realistic” about getting oilsands product to Asia via a northern pipeline through the Northwest Territories, he said, noting the Gateway and Trans Mountain lines are well advanced in design and commercial support compared to running a pipeline through the N.W.T.

Environmental groups say no new pipelines or alternatives for shipping oilsands crude should even be considered until the environmental consequences of developing the resource — including greenhouse gas emissions and cumulative impacts on land — are more effectively addressed.

“We’re seeing a lot of opposition to these various transportation options for oilsands crude,” said Jennifer Grant, director of the oilsands program at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think-tank.

“It’s not just about making pipelines safer or looking at the various pros and cons of each option, it’s about addressing the upstream issues that have been receiving actually less attention as the spotlight has shifted to pipelines.”

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© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

 Original source article: Pipeline protests spur companies to consider shipping oilsands crude by rail

By Natalie Stechyson, Postmedia News August 10, 2012

OTTAWA — The United Church of Canada will vote next week on whether to publicly oppose the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, an issue some church leaders say is a moral question.

The proposal, from the British Columbia Native Ministries Council, is one of about 130 proposals church commissioners will discuss at the 41st General Council in Ottawa. The General Council meets every three years to elect a new church moderator and approve new policies.

“We are united in our belief that this project and others like it will do a disproportionate amount of direct harm to the life-sustaining air, food and water that we all share on Earth,” the proposal says.

The British Columbia Native Ministries Council, which is primarily made up of aboriginal members, took its proposal to the church’s All Native Circle Conference in July.

That conference then asked the General Council to publicly support the native ministries council in categorically rejecting construction of the proposed pipeline, and to communicate that decision to government, industry and the public.

Deliberations on the question are to take place Tuesday. The council commissioners could choose to accept, reject, or table the resolution for further study.

The 1,172-kilometre Gateway pipeline would transport oilsands crude from northern Alberta to the port of Kitimat, B.C., where it would be loaded onto supertankers and shipped to Asian markets.

The council will consider issues such as aboriginal rights and climate change when deliberating on the topic, said Mardi Tindal, the current moderator of the United Church of Canada.

“All of our sacred texts speak to the need of having an economy that is based on ecological health and justice,” Tindal said.

The United Church of Canada is no stranger to taking political stands. For instance, it called on the federal government to recognize same-sex marriage in 2003 — two years before it was legalized.

General Council will also consider proposals on a number of social justice issues including Canadian mining activities in the Philippines and Central America, the age of eligibility for Old Age Security, and the Israel-Palestinian debate.

“It enlivens our faith when we engage in these passionate conversations. It causes us to go deeply into what it means to have a living faith that not only breathes in with prayer, but breathes out with action,” Tindal said.

The United Church of Canada is the country’s largest protestant denomination, with close to three million Canadians identifying themselves identifying their religion as the United Church, according to Statistics Canada.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Original source article: United Church to decide next week whether it opposes Northern Gateway

By Dene Moore, Canadian Press August 2, 2012

VANCOUVER – The National Energy Board says it will increase safety audits on Enbridge  in the coming months based on a damning report into the company’s conduct before and after a spill from one of the Calgary-based company’s pipelines in Michigan.

Board chairman Gaetan Caron issued a public letter on the board’s website noting that the federal regulatory body has reviewed the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s report into the massive spill into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010.

In the letter, Caron said the board will thoroughly review the U.S. agency’s report, but in the meantime, the board has been reviewing Enbridge’s management practices.

“In the next weeks and months, we will be conducting safety audits to review and confirm that improvements, particularly to their control room practices in Edmonton, are satisfactory,” Caron wrote.

In a letter to company CEO Patrick Daniel dated July 26, the board advised that it plans to inspect the company’s Edmonton control room on Aug. 8 and 9 and discuss implementation of onshore pipeline regulations.

The complete U.S. transportation board report will be available in several weeks, it noted, and findings may prompt additional follow-up compliance activities.

The investigation into the Michigan spill has focused unwanted attention on Enbridge as it champions a 1,177-kilometre pipeline that would deliver crude from Alberta’s oilsands to tankers in Kitimat, B.C., for shipment to Asia.

In recent years, the National Energy Board has conducted approximately 25 compliance checks per year on every aspect of Enbridge’s management system and imposed two precautionary pressure restrictions on Enbridge pipelines, both of which remain in effect.

In June 2011, the board issued a restriction on Enbridge’s Norman Wells to Zama pipeline, noting that the company initially reported that approximately four barrels of oil were released in a pipeline leak near Wrigley, N.W.T., on May 20 of that year, but ultimately revised that to up to 1,500 barrels.

The order also admonished Enbridge for its communication with the local community over that spill.

But nothing issued so far by the federal regulatory agency has come close to the scathing preliminary report by the U.S. transportation safety board, which likened Enbridge’s response to the Kalamazoo spill to “Keystone Kops,” saying the company missed opportunities to prevent the 2010 spill and then bungled the response.

Three million litres of crude leaked into the river.

Another spill last week from the company’s Line 14 pipeline running through Grand Marsh, Wisc., dumped roughly 1,200 barrels of oil into a field that is part of the pipeline right-of-way.

B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake announced Thursday the provincial government will take the opportunity as an intervenor to ask some tough questions of the company when federal environmental review hearings resume this fall.

Lake said the government wants to know more about the increased safety measures Enbridge recently announced it would take to prevent a spill, and more details about how much liability Enbridge and its partners will take on in the event of an oil spill.

Last month, the province announced it could only support the pipeline project if it met five criteria

“We know that you can’t reduce the risk to zero. What we’re saying is that we think you can develop resources in British Columbia in a sustainable way,” Lake told reporters in Vancouver.

“We need evidence to show that you can reduce the risk to an acceptable level. That is entirely separate from the fair share of fiscal benefits, because there is no price that is worth taking a risk with the environment, whether it’s on the coast or the land.”

Lake said it’s up to Enbridge to convince British Columbians that they have acceptable safety measures in place.

The province is looking at other jurisdictions around the world, including Norway and Alaska, to see what kind of measures and regulatory processes are in place to prevent spills, or failing that, to ensure companies pay for the clean-up.

Ultimately, critics say the greatest risk from the project lies offshore in the oil-laden super-tankers that will be traversing the Pacific, and that is federal jurisdiction. And the Conservative government has made no secret of its support for the project.

Lake said he’s met with the federal environment and fisheries ministers to outline provincial concerns.

“We’re at the early stages of this, so I suspect that those discussions will take place,” he told reporters. “They just have to take place. These are conditions that we’ve laid down as mandatory for us to consider this, so those things will have to occur.”

Enbridge chief executive Patrick Daniel is confident the company can meet all of the safety demands by the B.C. government.

“We feel absolutely confident that we can do that,” Daniel said during a conference call Thursday to discuss the company’s latest quarterly results.

Environmental review hearings are set to resume this fall, and final arguments in the process are scheduled for March and April next year.

© Copyright (c)

By Kelly Cryderman and Chris Varcoe, Calgary Herald August 1, 2012

CALGARY — A new pipeline battle between the Alberta and B.C. governments could soon be raging over the expansion of an old oil line that runs to the West Coast.

While public attention is focused on Enbridge’s controversial Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake stresses his government also expects a planned expansion of the existing Trans Mountain line to meet five conditions for heavy oil transport in the province.

That includes a demand that B.C. receives its “fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits” of proposed pipelines that move Alberta bitumen to port, reflecting the environmental risks facing the province.

“This is not about having a fight with Alberta. This is about standing up for British Columbia and having a conversation about a new type of commodity,” Lake said in an interview Tuesday. “What we’re talking about here is a huge expansion and also product that is a little bit different in heavy oil, rather than the typical product that moves there through (Trans Mountain) at the moment.”

The B.C. government has made headlines by demanding a greater share of the benefits of pipelines that cut through its territory — including the proposed $5.5-billion Enbridge pipeline — as one of conditions to support any project. Other points relate to environmental protection and First Nations issues.

In a public spat that dominated last week’s premiers meeting, Alberta Premier Alison Redford ruled out any chance the province will pony up royalty revenue belonging to Albertans in exchange for B.C. project support.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark shot back that Northern Gateway is effectively dead if Alberta doesn’t want to talk about additional compensation.

While Gateway has commanded most of the headlines, Kinder Morgan Canada has proposed a $4.1-billion expansion to its 60-year-old Trans Mountain line. The proposal would allow the company to more than double its current capacity, transporting 750,000 barrels of oil per day to Burnaby, mostly from the oilsands.

The expansion would also increase tanker traffic in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. If Trans Mountain is expanded, Lake said Alberta would gain most of the economic benefits and “there would likely be a fiscal imbalance there as well.

“We know if you’re moving that much heavy oil, the fiscal benefits to Alberta and to Canada are significant. And again, the risks still would be borne disproportionately (by)British Columbia.”

Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk said Tuesday the Redford government is open to talks, but is not going to negotiate on the “fair share” of the fiscal and economic benefits that B.C. is requesting — no matter what the project.

He said his government is focused on promoting high environmental standards and the economic benefits of pipelines to Canada as a whole.

“It is abundantly obvious that if we compete domestically, we cannot be competitive internationally,” Lukaszuk said.

“There will be no one-off discussions. That has been very clear.”

The deputy premier added discussions about environmental standards don’t mean an “exchange for dollars.”

“We would go much further being partners in developing mutual resources than perhaps hindering each other from doing so.”

Kinder Morgan expects to file the necessary facilities applications with the National Energy Board in late 2013, and the expansion will take place by late 2017, if timelines are met.

Andrew Galarnyk, director of external relations for Kinder Morgan Canada, said his company will look at what they can do to make improvements to pipeline safety and spill response procedures.

“We’re going to work with the B.C. government to satisfy their conditions, to the extent that they are ours to satisfy,” Galarnyk said in Calgary.

“But we don’t view this product to be any more dangerous than the products that we carry through the line now. And we do carry bitumen though the line now.”

However, the line expansion would see “a larger volume of the heavier products that would go through.”

The Trans Mountain pipeline first opened in 1953 and moves some refined products, such as gasoline and diesel, as well as lighter and heavier grades of crude oil.

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© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

 Original source article: Pipeline war with Alberta escalates as B.C. adds Trans Mountain expansion to ‘fair share’ list

By Todd Richmond, The Associated Press August 1, 2012

MADISON, Wis. – U.S. officials are demanding Calgary-based oil giant Enbridge submit a re-start plan before it can re-open a pipeline which spilled thousands of gallons of crude in Wisconsin last week.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced Tuesday it has blocked Enbridge’s Houston-based subsidiary from reopening the 687 kilometre line.

Administration officials must approve a re-start plan that establishes leak patrols and details co-ordination with local emergency workers before the company can resume operations.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement that he plans to meet with company officials soon.

He said they’ll have to convince him why the pipeline should continue to operate without an overhaul or complete replacement.

The pipeline carries crude oil to Chicago-area refineries. It ruptured Friday, spraying about 1,200 barrels, or about 50,400 gallons, of crude into a pasture just east of Grand Marsh, Wis., in Adams County. The cause of the spill is still unknown.

“Pipelines operate safely across the country every single day,” LaHood said. “That’s why accidents, like the one in Wisconsin, are absolutely unacceptable.”

Enbridge (TSX:ENB) said it’s not unusual for the administration to issue such an order and the company is already working on complying.

Enbridge spokeswoman Lorraine Little said in an email that repairs to the pipeline should be complete by Thursday and the company is preparing a re-start plan.

“The safety of people who live and work near our pipelines and the environment is Enbridge’s top priority,” she said.

Enbridge officials said the spill was quickly contained and no one was hurt.

State Department of Natural Resources spokesman Ed Culhane said the pasture’s owner and his wife, as well as a woman, her daughter and her mother were evacuated from two homes near the rupture because the air was full of benzene, a chemical that can cause cancer.

Some cattle and horses also had to be rinsed off, he said.

The company managed to vacuum up between 12,600 and 21,000 gallons, Culhane said. The pasture doesn’t have any surface water, he said, and no wildlife was affected.

The company is currently working to skim off the contaminated soil and dispose of it and the company’s contractors are beginning to test ground water for contamination, he said.

The pipeline safety administration issued a nine-page order requiring Enbridge to submit the re-start plan.

The order also calls for additional corrective measures, saying the line crosses multiple rivers, highways and population centres.

The requirements include completing an analysis of the failed pipe; contracting with an independent operator to evaluate the company’s procedures, maintenance history and repair decisions; submitting a plan for long-term testing on the line; and submitting monthly reports on testing and repairs.

The order also questioned the company’s pipeline integrity program, noting tests performed during the pipeline’s construction in 1998 revealed defects in seams in multiple locations and that the pipeline ruptured in January 2007, spilling 63,000 gallons of crude in Clark County.

Another Enbridge pipeline ruptured in July 2010, spilling more than 840,000 gallons of crude near Marshall, Mich.

Province ‘always ready to speak on behalf of Alberta’s interests’

 By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal July 31, 2012

EDMONTON – Environmental groups are geared up to oppose a pipeline that would ship Alberta bitumen to Eastern Canada, opening another front in the public-opinion wars provincial and industry officials are already fighting in B.C. and the United States.

Days after Canada’s National Energy Board approved the first of two Enbridge requests that will bring Alberta crude to refineries in Central Canada, environmental organizations went on the offensive.

They alleged the Calgary-based pipeline company plans to use its Ontario lines to move Alberta bitumen through Central Canada and on to international markets, and urged Ontarians and Quebeckers to demand a public debate.

“If Ontario is to facilitate expansion of the oilsands, then let’s have an open, public debate and proper public scrutiny,” said Albert Koehl, an Ontario-based Ecojustice lawyer who argued the environmental case against Enbridge’s proposal before the National Energy Board.

“We see the obvious impacts of climate change, and at the same time we’re marching full speed ahead on expansion of the tar sands, and these two things have to be reconciled.”

The protests came after Enbridge on Friday won approval to reverse the flow of Line 9A from Sarnia, Ont., to Westover, near Hamilton. In the fall, the company will apply to reverse the flow of Line 9B, from Westover to Montreal.

The lines could eventually carry Alberta oilsands-derived crude to refineries in Ontario and Quebec. From Montreal, Alberta crude could also be exported internationally via the United States, the St. Lawrence Seaway, or through a new pipeline to refineries in Saint John, N.B.

Proponents of that existing west-to-east line once believed it could help establish new markets for Alberta oilsands producers while circumventing environmental opposition to construction of the new Gateway and Keystone pipelines in British Columbia and the United States, respectively.

But environmental groups made it clear Monday they will fight plans to use the existing lines to ship Alberta’s oilsands-derived crude.

“It is not a slam-dunk,” said Steven Guilbeault of Equiterre, a Quebec-based environmental group. “This is a 40-year-old pipeline that wasn’t built to handle the tar sands,” he said, highlighting corrosion and pressure concerns.

Quebec’s environment minister responded Tuesday, pledging his province will “take a very strict approach” to pipeline projects and will carefully review requests under Quebec laws.

“It is important to protect waterways, wetlands and drinking water sources,” Quebec Environment Minister Pierre Arcand said in a statement. “Environmental issues remain central to our concerns.”

He reiterated his commitment to strictly monitor the risks associated with the presence of any pipeline in Quebec, and said the ministry “intends to seek a seat at the table” during NEB hearings.

Enbridge spokesman Graham White said the lines will be used primarily to ship light crude, but that they are safe for transporting oilsands-derived crude, should the need arise.

“We are … ensuring the line is at some point capable of carrying heavier products … because of the expanding oilsands production,” White said. “We want to have that flexibility.”

White said there is no evidence to suggest oilsands-derived crude causes more corrosion inside pipelines than any other product. He pointed to the recent report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which excoriated Enbridge for its failures but explicitly ruled out internal corrosion as a cause for a massive spill in Michigan.

He said the company is in the process of doing “integrity digs,” excavating the pipelines and testing to ensure it is sound.

The Alberta government acted as an intervener in the NEB hearings on Enbridge’s Line 9A, but made no formal submissions.

In its application for intervener status, the province said it was interested in the proceedings because “the application may impact the marketing of Alberta’s crude oil.

“Alberta will be particularly interested in understanding commercial impacts and benefits associated with the proposed application,” the province said.

Asked whether Alberta has any plans to address the debate in the east, Alberta Energy spokeswoman Janice Schroeder said in an email that “the decision is a federal regulatory decision about a pipeline between two locations in Ontario. Alberta was not involved in that hearing, and it is a commercial decision best addressed by the company and the regulator.

She said the province is “always ready to speak on behalf of Alberta’s interests.”

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Increase for regulated rate will add $30 to average monthly electricity bill

 By Dave Cooper, Edmonton Journal July 31, 2012

EDMONTON – Power rates for Edmonton-area consumers without contracts will jump almost 28 per cent in August — from 9.03 to 11.54 cents per kilowatt hour, the highest since February.

The 2.51 cent increase will push up the average household’s monthly power bill by about $30.

By comparison, the rate last August hit 12.9 cents, while the rate for August, 2010, was 8.3 cents. Transmission and administration costs make up the other half of the average power bill.

“There are two periods each year when we see higher prices in the wholesale power market, when it is really cold or really hot,” said Epcor Utilities spokesman Tim LeRiche.

Epcor buys power for 600,000 city and regional customers under the regulated rate option (RRO). The firm has been trying to convince the province to let it purchase power over a longer period — more than the five to 45 days in advance of the delivery month. Firms which offer contracts oppose the move.

“While August is high, we have already bought some power for September delivery and feel the RRO rate could subside then.”

LeRiche said the July 9 Edmonton blackouts, when power prices hit the maximum of $999 per megawatt hour for a four hour stretch after four generators went down within a few hours, had no effect on monthly average wholesale prices.

“We had already bought our power for August at that point, and the average was still around $50 MWh.

Market demand is behind the wholesale price jump for August since all of Alberta’s generators are operating normally.

Epcor does not sell contracts, but the other large players — Calgary’s Enmax and Direct Energy — both sell power contracts to consumers.

However, there are plenty of smaller firms and co-ops that are now part of the mix for consumers who want contracts, says Nick Clark, managing partner of Utility Network & Partners Inc.

His company operates what is called boutique retailing, with nine retailers operating under his umbrella, using common back office services.

“In the past, the major barrier to entry in Alberta’s deregulated market has been the massive complexity in data processing, metering, load settlement, customer billing. We automated these functions and today we provide a number of retailers all over Alberta with an easy way to plug into the concept of cloud computing and use our centralized data hub for processing transactions,” said Clark.

Five new small independent retailers will start offering retail prices to consumers soon.

They are: Island Energy, focused on the Edmonton market, and run by Harold Seibert who also owns a satellite communications network focused on ethnic programing; Peace Power in Grande Prairie, run by Chad Mielke, a young entrepreneur; Northern Lights, the competitive retail arm of North Parkland REA operating out of Lac La Biche; Sponsor Energy headed up by Carolyn Martin and Peter Piliounis, a venture focused on creating a retail business linked to fundraising initiatives; NewGen Energy, founded by David McDonald, Jim Floyd and Larry Peters, will be initially focused on the farming and irrigation community in southern Alberta.

The current small firms using Clark’s services are Adagio, Brighter Futures, Bow Valley, E. NRG, Milner, Mountain View, Spark, Spot Power and Vector.

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