The City of Burnaby is barring Kinder Morgan from testing a potential route for its proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, according to the energy company’s top executive.
Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson told the Vancouver Sun his company is considering seeking orders from the National Energy Board – the federal regulatory agency currently reviewing the pipeline proposal – to allow them onto city land to try out its new tunnel route under Burnaby Mountain. He claims the city is preventing them from conducting preliminary geotechnical work to determine if tunnelling is a viable option.
“(Burnaby mayor) Derek Corrigan and his council have taken the position that they won’t speak with us, they won’t engage with us, they won’t co-operate in any way with what we are considering,” said Anderson. “I’d much rather see a healthier relationship between us.”
The city is adamantly against the expansion, to the point of threatening to withhold emergency services in the event of an oil spill. Corrigan has stated that he will stand in front of a bulldozer to prevent the pipeline twinning.
“Kinder Morgan has always wanted us to be cooperative in what they’re doing,” said Corrigan. “One of the problems is that if we cooperate, they go to the NEB and say ‘Burnaby preferred this’ or ‘Burnaby cooperated in that,’ giving NEB the impression that we’re not so opposed to it. That, in fact, isn’t the case.”
Under the National Energy Board Act, the NEB has the power to give companies access to Crown and private land for surveys and other examinations along proposed pipeline routes. If the NEB grants Kinder Morgan access to the land, Corrigan said the city will argue to the board that the pipeline proposal is incomplete, citing the company repeated rerouting of the expansion.
“We’ve argued before, that their application wasn’t complete, that they continue to change the routes,” he said, noting that the company is currently analyzing its fourth preferred route. “They change the goal posts and force us into a position of having to go back and redo our work.”
Corrigan added that he would like the federal government to develop a national energy strategy to assess renewable energy sources and determine if projects like the Trans Mountain pipeline are worth doing.
Earlier this year, the City of Burnaby, which has intervener status, submitted a 300-page request for information to Kinder Morgan through the NEB, asking the company to address issues with infrastructure, emergency preparedness, environmental safety and technical aspects of the project.
The $5.4-billion pipeline expansion has been met with controversy, with the B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak questioning its environmental impact, Burnaby Dept. Fire Chief Chris Bowcock raising concerns over expanding KM’s 13-tank storage facility, and residents and the city highlighting a range of issues from earthquakes to property values to expropriation.
- With files from the Vancouver Sun
