By Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal July 30, 2012

EDMONTON – Alberta’s wheat and oat farmers are set to receive new representation this week as grain producers across Western Canada prepare for the beginning of an open market.

To coincide with the end of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on Aug. 1, the province has created two new agencies: the Alberta Wheat Commission and the Alberta Oat Growers Commission.

“They will be advocates for their producers on all issues related to that commodity and they will also fund research and market development projects they deem to be important,” Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson said Monday.

The new organizations will be bankrolled with refundable service charges applied to grain sold in the province.

For the new wheat commission, a fee of 70 cents per tonne should generate $3.5 million a year. The oat commission will charge 50 cents per tonne, raising about $140,000 per year.

Producers can fill out a form to get their money back, but it is believed most will support the initiative, said Kent Erickson, co-chairman of the steering committee for the wheat commission.

It will replace two other organizations: the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission and the Alberta Soft Wheat Producers Commission. Olson said those two agencies represented only five per cent of the grain grown in the province, while the new commission should represent closer to 100 per cent.

Under the wheat board monopoly, wheat and barley farmers had to go through the board to export their products. The end of that monopoly has created opportunities but also challenges on how research and marketing will be handled, Erickson said.

“We need an organization that is going to provide some leadership on improving the competitiveness and profitability.”

Both new commissions will start with interim boards of directors. Elections for board seats are expected to be complete by early 2013.

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News July 30, 2012

OTTAWA — An American climate scientist who published research behind the iconic “hockey stick” graph of rising global temperatures in recent decades is speaking out against a major pipeline expansion project due to its potential link to rising carbon dioxide emissions from Alberta’s oilsands industry.

Michael Mann, a professor from the meteorology and geosciences departments of Pennsylvania State University, joined U.S. conservation groups on Monday in urging the Obama administration to “level the playing field” in its review of Alberta-based TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL project, which would open up new markets for Canadian oil by transporting it to refineries on the gulf coast of Texas.

“The bottom line is that if we don’t take into account the environmental degradation associated with the climate change impact of some of these decisions then we’re not operating on a fair playing field when it comes to our energy choices,” said Mann in an interview with Postmedia News.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has described Alberta’s bitumen deposits as a “strategic resource” that creates thousands of jobs and makes up about two per cent of the Canadian economy. But his government has repeatedly delayed plans in recent years to regulate the industry’s impact on global warming.

Several Canadian government departments recognize the oilsands represents the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Recently released internal briefing notes from Natural Resources Canada have also noted that the industry’s expansion is “inconsistent” with Harper’s international commitments to reduce the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Mann said that extracting oil from a “pretty dirty petroleum source like the tarsands,” without factoring in all of the climate-related costs, makes it artificially cheaper than cleaner sources of energy.

The message coincides with a new editorial in the New York Times that urged the U.S. government to consider what the pipeline could “spill into the skies,” as it continues a review that was extended last year by President Obama.

Mann, who recently published a book called “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars” — describing his research linking global warming to human activity and the resulting political and personal attacks — also was among ten climate scientists who warned U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a July 17th letter that it would be “neither wise, nor credible,” to omit global warming impacts from its review of the pipeline project.

“The vast volumes of carbon in the tarsands ensure that they will play an important role in whether or not climate change gets out of hand,” the scientists said in the letter. “Understanding the role this large scale new pipeline will play in that process is clearly crucial.”

The warnings appear to contrast with a recent commentary published by University of Victoria climate scientists Andrew Weaver and Neil Swart, who estimated that emissions from consumption of bitumen as a fuel were lower than emissions from other fossil fuels such as coal. Weaver and Swart’s analysis, which did not examine production or refining emissions from the oilsands industry, found that the bitumen resource in Alberta contains enough greenhouse gases to raise average global temperatures by 0.36 C if it is fully exploited.

Weaver later said that the commentary was meant to argue that consumption of all fossil fuels must be slashed to limit rising global temperatures and climate change.

Conservation groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council say that about 400,000 people submitted comments to Clinton’s department during a public consultation period for the review, urging the government to consider climate change in the scope of its analysis.

“The more we know about Keystone, the less it makes sense,” said Anthony Swift, a policy analyst from NRDC, during a media conference call on Monday.

[email protected]

twitter.com/mikedesouza

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Original source article: “Hockey stick” climate scientist challenges Keystone XL pipeline

The Canadian Press July 31, 2012

A former federal environment minister has joined the mounting fracas around the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, arguing the project is not in Canada’s best interest and that Enbridge is the “last company in North America” that should be permitted to do the job.

But David Anderson does not agree with his First Nations groups and environmentalists that have harsh words for the position taken by British Columbia’s premier, instead lauding Christy Clark for playing her cards right.

“This harrumphing and huffing and puffing and ‘Christy Clark doesn’t understand it’ — she’s smart as a fox on this one,” Anderson said in an interview after joining several anti-pipeline activists who called on the premier to take a tougher stand.

“She understands that the whole concept of royalties must be brought up and we’re going to have to shake that tree pretty hard and we don’t know what’s going to fall out of it. She’s started that debate. No one has dared do it since Trudeau.”

Last week, Clark walked out of talks at an annual premiers’ meeting that included discussion about crafting a national energy strategy.

She declared Alberta must negotiate sharing economic benefits, just days after her ministers announced five preconditions that must be met in order for the province to even begin to consider shoring up its support.

Clark and opponents of the pipeline agree Alberta stands to gain the lion’s share of economic benefits while B.C. takes on most of the environmental risks.

Clark has not clearly stated how much more she wants in exchange, or whether it would be skimmed from royalties. However, the government has said it’s not interested in taxing Enbridge any further.

The $6-billion twin pipeline would flow crude from Alberta’s oilsands to a port on B.C.’s west coast for export to Asia.

Regardless of his view that Clark has deftly handled the situation, the Victoria-based former Liberal cabinet minister came out swinging against Calgary-based Enbridge.

“Enbridge clearly has a cowboy culture quite inappropriate for building a pipeline in one of the most sensitive parts of the world,” said Anderson, citing a series of Enbridge spills, one as recently as Friday in Wisconsin.

He said the company has demonstrated “years of inadequate behaviour,” highlighting the oft-cited report by U.S. investigators that describes employees’ response to a calamitous leak near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 as the “Keystone Kops.”

And he was critical of the company’s failure to give the National Energy Board the names of the companies that will be contracted by Enbridge to get the bitumen from Alberta to Asia.

“We have not got the right regulatory system to analyze this effectively, they have not done an effective job in asking for information from the company, the company itself is not the right one and the place they want to put the port and pipeline is one of the worst,” Anderson said.

A spokesman for Enbridge did not respond to a request for an interview.

But Clark’s demand that B.C. receive greater compensation for potentially agreeing to take on the risk of an oil spill as a result of the pipeline didn’t impress Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

The money doesn’t matter, he said.

“No way, absolutely no way, will we allow or tolerate” the project, he said.

“We will fight this through the Joint Review Panel, which we are doing. We will fight this proposal in the courts and if necessary, we will oppose this proposal on the land itself.”

Phillip called the struggle to shut down the project the largest issue he’s ever had to deal with, characterizing it as “more significant” than both the 1990 Oka and 1995 Ipperwash land disputes in Quebec and Ontario.

The premier has been criticized both for not taking a strong enough stand and also for getting involved at all, with some experts arguing the project is ultimately a matter of federal jurisdiction.

B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake has suggested the province could block the pipeline by refusing to grant upwards of 60 permits or not allowing access to hydro power.

Prof. Jamie Lawson, at the University of Victoria, said technically Ottawa, could trump B.C.’s qualms by declaring the project to be of general advantage to Canada, or to two or more provinces.

“But that is something that means the federal government would be overriding provincial powers,” he said. “And I think the federal government in recent years has been hesitant to use [it.]”

© Copyright (c) The Province

Original source article: Enbridge pipeline not in Canada’s best interest, former environment minister says

Reuters July 29, 2012

 WISCONSIN – Canada’s Enbridge Inc. raced on Sunday to repair a major pipeline that spilled more than 1,000 barrels of oil in a Wisconsin field, provoking fresh ire from Washington over the latest in a series of leaks.

The spill on Friday, which comes almost two years to the day after a ruptured Enbridge line fouled part of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, has forced the closure of a major conduit for Canadian light crude shipments to U.S. refiners and threatens further reputational damage to a company that launched an over $3 billion expansion program just two months ago.

Enbridge said it intended to begin repairs to Line 14 late on Saturday after making “excellent progress” in clean-up, allowing for visual inspection of the line. But it still did not know what had caused the incident and provided no estimated on when the 318,000 barrels per day Line 14 might resume service.

An image of the site posted on Enbridge’s website showed a patch of damp, blackened earth near a stand of trees about one-third the size of a football field. It found some oil on two small farm ponds, but said they did not connect to moving waterways and that drinking wells did not seem to be affected.

Although the spill appeared to be relatively small and quickly contained, it comes at a delicate time for Enbridge, which suffered another leak in Alberta, Canada a month ago and endured a scathing report from U.S. safety regulators over its handling of the Michigan incident in 2010, with employees likened to the “Keystone Kops” for their bungled response.

“Enbridge is fast becoming to the Midwest what BP was to the Gulf of Mexico, posing troubling risks to the environment,” U.S. Representative Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement.

“The company must be forthcoming about this entire incident, and deserves a top-to-bottom review of their safety culture, procedures and standards,” said Markey, an outspoken critic of increasing imports of Canada’s heavy oil sands crude.

Just two months ago, Enbridge kicked off one of the most sweeping expansions in its history, announcing a multibillion-dollar series of projects aimed at moving western Canada and North Dakota oil to Eastern refineries and eliminating costly bottlenecks in the U.S. Midwest.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which has the authority to prevent Enbridge from restarting the line, said it had launched an investigation. Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are also on site, Enbridge said in a statement.

Line 14 is a 24-inch diameter pipe that was installed in 1998, making it a relatively new line. Enbridge said it had been inspected twice in the past five years.

TWO LANDOWNERS, ONE HOUSE ‘COVERED’

In most cases, smaller pipeline leaks can be repaired quickly, although regulators may require significant work if they find any cause for alarm. Following the leak in Michigan two years ago, one line was shut for more than two months.

Enbridge said two landowners had been affected and that one family had been relocated for their safety and comfort, but that most of the spill was restricted to the pipeline right-of-way. It kept its estimate of the spill at around 1,200 barrels — about as much as would fit in six very large oil tanker trucks.

“The house right next to where the pipeline broke got covered with oil,” said Patrick Swadish, who lives just about a mile northwest of the spill site in a rural area of mostly farmland about 80 miles north of the college town of Madison.

Oil trucks, Enbridge vehicles and about a dozen crews were working in the area, which had been cordoned off by sheriff deputies. Local law enforcement officials said they had been told it may take up to 30 days to clean the area.

Enbridge also said it had briefly shut down two larger adjacent lines — the 400,000 bpd Line 61 and the 670,000 bpd Line 6A — but both were pumping again within a day. Together with Line 14, they form the backbone of Lakehead, a 2.5 million bpd network that is the main route for Canadian exports.

Another line, the 180,000 bpd Line 13, which carries diluent from Chicago to Edmonton, Alberta, would be restarted once it was confirmed it had not been impacted by the release, it said.

PREVIOUS SPILLS

Just weeks ago, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board blasted Enbridge’s handling of the July 2010 rupture of its Line 6B near Marshall, Michigan, which led to more than 20,000 barrels of crude leaking into the Kalamazoo River.

The NTSB said it found a complete breakdown of company safety measures, and that Enbridge employees performed like “Keystone Kops” trying to contain it. The rupture went undetected for 17 hours.

U.S. pipeline regulators fined it $3.7 million for the spill, their largest ever penalty.

The incidents, plus the most recent spill in Alberta, have caused furor just as the company seeks approval for its C$6 billion Northern Gateway pipeline to Canada’s West Coast amid staunch opposition from environmental groups and native communities that warn against oil spills.

© Copyright (c) Reuters

Reuters July 28, 2012

CALGARY – Canada’s Enbridge Inc. said an oil spill in Wisconsin had forced it to shut down part of the main pipeline system delivering Canadian crude to U.S. refiners on Friday, a fresh blow for a firm already facing fierce criticism from regulators.

Almost two years to the day after a major spill on a different part of its network, Enbridge shut down Line 14 after a leak that it estimated at around 1,200 barrels of oil. The 318,000 barrel per day (bpd) line, part of the Lakehead system, carries light crude oil to Chicago-area refineries.

“Enbridge is treating this situation as a top priority,” said Richard Adams, vice president of U.S. Operations at Enbridge. “We are bringing all necessary resources to bear.”

The cause of Friday’s spill was undetermined and Enbridge Energy Partners said it had no estimate on when flows would resume. Line 14 is one of four lines that ship mainly Canadian crude via Lakehead, a 2.5 million bpd network that is the principle route for Canadian exports.

The news will not help Enbridge build public trust in its network, which has come under scrutiny following several high-profile incidents, including a spill in Alberta last month and a massive leak in Michigan two years ago.

Just weeks ago, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board delivered a scathing report of Enbridge’s handling of the July 2010 rupture of its Line 6B near Marshall, Michigan, which led to more than 20,000 barrels of crude leaking into the Kalamazoo River. U.S. pipeline regulators fined it $3.7 million for the spill, their largest ever penalty.

The incidents have caused furor just as the company seeks approval for its C$6 billion Northern Gateway pipeline to Canada’s West Coast from Alberta amid staunch opposition from environmental groups and native communities that warn against oil spills on land and in coastal waters.

This month, Enbridge Chief Executive Pat Daniel acknowledged in an interview with Reuters that the criticism of the company, especially from the U.S. regulator, makes it more difficult to convince Canadians to support Northern Gateway.

KEYSTONE COPS

In its report earlier this month, the NTSB said it found a complete breakdown of company safety measures, and that Enbridge employees performed like “Keystone Kops” trying to contain it. The rupture, which went undetected for 17 hours, spilled more than 20,000 barrels of heavy crude.

The board said the main failure was due to multiple small “corrosion-fatigue cracks” that grew over time to create a breach in the pipe over 80 inches long. It said Enbridge knew for years that the section of pipe was vulnerable.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, said its probe uncovered two dozen regulation violations related to the leak, which spawned a massive clean up that the company has estimated will cost more than $700 million.

In response to the report, Enbridge said it believed its personnel were trying to do the “right thing” at the time.

Enbridge said Line 14 was a 24-inch diameter pipe that was installed in 1998, making it a relatively new line. In most cases, smaller pipeline leaks can be repaired quickly allowing operations to resume pumping, although regulators may require significant work if they find any cause for alarm. Following the leak two years ago Line 6B was shut for over two months.

No injury was reported at the line, which is near Grand Marsh, Wisconsin, Enbridge said.

© Copyright (c) Reuters

By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal July 25, 2012

EDMONTON – Leading environmental economists say British Columbia’s demand for a “fair share” of Alberta’s oil money may be unprecedented and politically explosive, but it makes economic sense for Alberta to give compensation to B.C. for bearing the environmental risks of a heavy oil pipeline to the West Coast.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark said Monday B.C. won’t support the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline unless her province is compensated for shouldering all of the marine environmental risk and more than half of the risk related to a potential spill on land. Premier Alison Redford has rejected the idea.

Robert Mendelsohn, an environmental economist at Yale University in Connecticut, said offering compensation might get the Northern Gateway pipeline built and could also help secure approval of the Keystone pipeline to the United States.

“This (pipeline) is terribly important for Alberta, but not so much for B.C.; they are taking lots of risk and getting nothing for it. That idea — that nobody wants to take risk for no benefit — that’s an age-old phenomenon,” Mendelsohn said.

Government and industry typically respond to this problem by trying to reduce the risk as much as possible, he said, but “at some point it ends up becoming preposterously expensive to continue to reduce the risk further.

“And there is always a residual risk. The question is, how do you cope with that? Historically, people have gone too far on the risk reduction side, and they’ve not explored enough of the compensation side.

Mendelsohn said compensation is a good way of resolving that residual risk. While making a grab for Alberta’s royalties is likely to hit a raw political nerve, funding a public project, for example, could be “a political win-win for everybody.

“It’s certainly a way of resolving these political debates, where there are some people who are losing a little bit, but where if we don’t do the project, society loses in a big way. We’ve got to do better than allowing local groups to hold an entire society hostage, especially if the local people are making a reasonable claim.”

Mendelsohn added: “This debate might actually free up the American debate as well. The problems the Americans are having with the (Keystone) pipeline were minor, as far as I can tell, and should be easily compensatable.”

Utah State University environmental economist Arthur Caplan said economists first started working to quantify environmental risk after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, so the idea is relatively new. After the spill, a blue-ribbon panel of Nobel Prize winning economists tried for the first time to assign economic value to damaging something that is not consumable, such as a pristine wilderness.

The idea of compensating B.C. for taking environmental risks — instead of environmental damages — is a small but significant evolution of that idea.

“If the benefits of this pipeline are that great, then I don’t think this idea of compensation is far-fetched at all. But once you start factoring in the political history, then you’ve got an issue,” Caplan said. “Politically, people can’t accept that. People always say, well, I sacrificed and nobody ever compensated me. But two wrongs don’t make a right.

“I would think it would be even more in Alberta’s interest to compensate and say: ‘We’re not going to play this game.’ Just stand up and say: ‘If we can accurately quantify what the … risk of damages are to B.C., let’s break the pattern here, let’s break the mould.’

“Set a new precedent, a softer political path. … Isn’t that going to open the floodgates? That’s a really good comeback. But if you really believe … the benefits so far outweigh the costs, then there is room for compensation.”

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Plans to raise issue over Northern Gateway revenues at Council of the Federation

By DARCY HENTON, Calgary Herald July 24, 2012 11:31 AM

Councillors more determined than ever to stop project after northern Alberta visit

By Gemma Karstens-Smith, edmontonjournal.com July 22, 2012

EDMONTON – A visit to northern Alberta last week left councillors from three B.C. First Nations feeling physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted.

“My eyes are burning and my head’s spinning and I’m nauseated,” said Timothy Innes, councillor of the Gitxaala Nation on Porcher Island south of Prince Rupert, after three days of touring oilsands developments north of Fort McMurray. The tour was organized by Nikki Skuce of ForestEthics whose job as senior energy campaigner is to stop the Enbridge pipeline project.

The Gitxaala Nation is one of several First Nations whose traditional territory would be affected by Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. The $5.5 billion, 1,172-kilometre pipeline would stretch from Bruderheim outside Edmonton to Kitimat on B.C.’s northwest coast, from where tankers would take the product to Asian markets.

Innes has been opposed to the project from the beginning, but wanted to see where the oil carried in the pipeline would come from so he joined Marilyn Slett, chief of the Heiltsuk First Nation in Bella Bella, and John Ridsdale, Chief Na’Moks of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation near Burns Lake, to explore the oilsands developments.

The visitors were surprised by the immensity and omnipresence of the operations.

“You can read as much as you want, listen to as much as you want, but until you see it, you won’t believe it,” said Ridsdale, whose title means head chief of the First Nation.

“You can smell it, you can taste it when you’re out there,” Slett added. “I was actually quite shocked by it.”

Enbridge has said they are engaging indigenous communities in designing the proposed pipeline, and have signed protocol agreements with some First Nations, including the Paul First Nation west of Edmonton.

But opposition from other indigenous groups has been staunch, and not everyone believes the pipeline will bring prosperity to the First Nations it would touch.

“There’s lots of money coming out of there, but the people there, they’re common people. They’ve got nothing. They’ve been left out,” Innes said. “And money is not going to bring back what’s going to be lost.”

Seeing the affects the oil operations have had on the traditional lands of the Fort McKay First Nation north of Fort McMurray was devastating for Slett.

“They don’t have their cultural way of life anymore,” she said. “To hear from an elder in Fort McKay that they can’t eat the fish there, they can’t hunt, berries don’t grow … it really hit home for me.”

First Nations people get their power from the land and the sea, Ridsdale said, and changing the landscape for a pipeline would destroy that special bond.

“What you’re doing is allowing them to commit cultural genocide,” Ridsdale said. “Without your culture, you have nothing.”

Ridsdale said Fort McKay elders warned him that allowing Northern Gateway to go ahead would open a Pandora’s box his community would never be able to close because the operations would continue to expand indefinitely and pipeline failures could occur.

Last week, Enbridge acknowledged safety concerns about the Northern Gateway pipeline, and pledged to invest $500 million in additional measures for the controversial project, including thicker pipeline walls at water crossings and more inspections.

“We have often been asked if we could guarantee that we would never have a significant pipeline failure over the years on Northern Gateway. These initiatives will put the project closer than any pipeline system in the world to providing that guarantee,” Enbridge vice-president Janet Holder said in a statement.

The changes don’t change Slett’s opinion on the pipeline because spills could still happen.

“They don’t mitigate our concerns,” she said. “An oil spill would be catastrophic for our community.”

Last week, B.C. premier Christy Clark also expressed doubts about the project, telling Postmedia News that the pipeline proposes a very large risk to the province with few benefits.

Slett agreed.

“The statements by Enbridge have overstated the benefits for British Columbians,” Slett said.

But the B.C. government has been too quiet for too long when it comes to the pipeline, she said, leaving environmental groups and First Nations to fill the gap. Innes, Ridsdale and Slett say their voices will only get louder after seeing the oilsands operations first-hand.

“Coming here made us stronger in our resolve,” Ridsdale said. “We’ve always spoken the truth and now we have a little bit of sugar to put on too.”

“We’re going to fight harder, going to keep saying no, until they understand what no means,” Innes said.

[email protected]

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Canadian Press July 20, 2012

CALGARY — Enbridge Inc. is proposing to make up to $500 million worth of changes to the design of the Northern Gateway pipeline system to address safety concerns raised by Aboriginal groups and others.

The pipeline, which already had a $5.5-billion pricetag before Friday’s announcement, has been the focus of intense debate among local communities, environmental groups and politicians.

Critics of Northern Gateway — a paired system of pipelines between the oilsands in northern Alberta and a terminal near Kitimat, B.C. — have said they’re worried about the potential environmental risks it poses within B.C. and in coastal waters.

The Calgary-based company (TSX:ENB) said Friday it had listened to the feedback from public hearings and was prepared to address concerns with a combination of improved technology and monitoring.

“We recognize that there are concerns among aboriginal groups and the public around pipeline safety and integrity,” said Janet Holder, an Enbridge executive vice-president.

“With these enhanced measures, we will make what is already a very safe project even safer in order to provide further comfort to people who are concerned about the safety of sensitive habitats in remote areas.”

Among other things, Enbridge says its new design would increase the thickness of pipe walls at river crossings. Enbridge says it would also increase the number of inspections it does by at least 50 per cent and staff pumping stations in remote locations around the clock.

“After years of consultation with stakeholders and after personally attending many regulatory hearings for Northern Gateway, it has become clear — we have to do everything we can to ensure confidence in the project,” Holder said.

The Enbridge announcement comes on the same day the Alberta government launched a pipeline safety initiative.

There have been three pipeline leaks in Alberta this year, including the leak of up to 475,000 litres of oil into the Red Deer River, a major drinking water source in central Alberta.

The calls for the review grew louder earlier this month when the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board lambasted Enbridge for its handling of an oil spill in Michigan two years ago.

A report concluded Enbridge bungled its response when millions of litres of oil began to pour in and around the Kalamazoo River in July 2010, comparing the company’s handling of the spill to the “Keystone Kops.”

Enbridge has promised to apply the lessons from the Michigan spill to its other projects, including Northern Gateway.

The company said it has already made numerous changes and welcomes the opportunity to explain those to the B.C government and the public.

The Michigan spill affected more than 50 kilometres of waterways and wetlands and about 320 people reported symptoms from crude oil exposure.

Enbridge’s cleanup costs have exceeded $800 million.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Pipeline safety review latest reversal from Redford’s team

By Graham Thomson, edmontonjournal.com July 21, 2012 11:08 AM

Would the real Alberta government please stand up?

Or at least wave so we can recognize you?

It’s getting to the point where I’m not sure the Alberta government I spoke to last week will be the same Alberta government that I’ll speak to next week. Heck, I’m not even sure if it’s the same government day to day.

On Friday, for example, the Alberta government announced it had ordered an independent review into pipeline safety. The announcement made by Energy Minister Ken Hughes is an idea that could help restore the public’s confidence in a system that has suffered three recent accidents, including the spill of 475,000 litres into the Red Deer River.

But the government that made Friday’s announcement of an independent review is not the same government that said just last month a review wasn’t needed. “The systems that we have in place today are appropriate,” said Hughes in June. “The energy industry currently is accountable already for every foot of pipeline that they have, and they conduct themselves with that accountability under the regulatory framework that we have in Alberta.”

At the time, Premier Alison Redford said she was “certainly not opposed” to a review of pipeline safety but, like Hughes, she didn’t want to do anything until after the Energy Resources Conservation Board had completed its investigation into the three recent spills.

The government stuck to its guns the past month, saying a review wasn’t needed. As late as Thursday, Redford seemed to be rejecting the notion. “I will tell you that I am not going through the next four years of this government responding every single time that something happens to a call for an independent inquiry,” Redford told reporters. “We have to have confidence in the institutions that are part of government. They’re there for a reason and they’ve done a good job up until now.”

That was Redford on Thursday.

This was Hughes on Friday: “It’s actually quite timely right now to look at the pipeline issue.”

What happened? Why “no” one day and “yes” another?

There are at least three reasons. One is public pressure, notably a coalition of landowner and environmental groups that published an open letter to the premier in newspapers demanding an independent review of pipeline safety after this year’s spills.

Then there was the damning report from the United States government on how Enbridge bungled a huge spill of oil from its transcontinental pipeline in Michigan. Even though that spill didn’t occur in Alberta, the pipeline’s operations are headquartered in Edmonton, and it didn’t help the industry or Enbridge in particular to have the company’s staff referred to as the “Keystone Kops.”

Of particular concern to the Alberta government was Enbridge’s role as operator of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would ship Alberta’s bitumen to Kitimat, B.C., for transport to Asia.

Public confidence was being undermined and the government had to do something. So, Hughes called a meeting a few days ago with leaders in the pipeline industry. “We had a very candid conversation about how we all need to up our game to set the bar higher when it comes to pipelines,” said Hughes. “The key outcome of that meeting earlier this week was that we all need to do more.