Metro Vancouver residents are divided on the issue of tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet, according to a new poll commissioned by Burnaby MP Kennedy Stewart.
Mustel Group conducted the poll in March, asking regional residents about Kinder Morgan's expansion plans for the Trans Mountain pipeline, which will bring more tanker traffic to the Burrard Inlet.
The poll showed 44 per cent of Metro Vancouver residents support the expansion while 44 per cent oppose, and 12 per cent are undecided.
"The environmental risks of pipeline projects, such as Enbridge Northern Gateway, are being widely and increasingly discussed," Stewart said in a media statement. "Kinder Morgan's proposed expansion directly affects our neighbourhoods and local shores. This poll indicates that there is no widespread appetite for an oil tanker traffic increase along the Burrard Inlet."
Burnaby residents appear less inclined to support expanding the line, which runs through local neighbourhoods. A few months ago, Stewart commissioned a similar poll of just Burnaby-Douglas residents and found that the majority was against the pipeline's expansion. According to that earlier survey, 28 per cent of respondents supported a Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, 44 wanted to keep the existing pipeline, and 28 per cent wanted it removed.
The 1,150-kilometre Trans Mountain pipeline is the only line that currently runs oil from Alberta to the West Coast. It ends in Burnaby with Kinder Morgan's tank farm and the Westridge Marine Terminal, where tankers fill up with crude for overseas exports.
Kinder Morgan, the pipeline's operator, is planning to double the line's capacity, from 300,000 barrels of oil a day up to 600,000 or possibly 700,000, although the company has not yet applied to the National Energy Board for approval.
According to Port Metro Vancouver, 38 crude tankers arrived in 2007. That number rose to 71 in 2010, but dropped to 34 in 2011 because of decreased market demand.
In a presentation to investors, Kinder Morgan Canada's president Ian Anderson predicted crude tanker arrivals would increase to 288 by 2016.
