Dear Editor:
You reported (Burnaby NOW, Aug. 22) on the National Energy Board's correspondence with Kinder Morgan about access to Burnaby Mountain for Kinder Morgan to do testing. The substance is the claim that access does not require either permission from the City of Burnaby or an order from the National Energy Board.
This is not what is stated in the National Energy Board's own publication, Pipeline Regulations in Canada: a Guide for Landowners and the Public (Revised September 2010). I was given this booklet in April this year at a Kinder Morgan public meeting. It discusses a "Land Agreement" between pipeline company and land owner, and then the process for obtaining "a right of entry when a land owner refuses to permit a company to enter his or her lands for pipeline-related purposes." This process includes a notice of 30 to 60 days to the land owner that it intends to apply to the NEB for a right of entry, the ability of the land owner to submit a written objection, and a process for determining compensation when there is no agreement.
It is absolutely clear from this that the company can not just go ahead without an NEB order as is suggested by the recent correspondence.
Perhaps the law has changed since the NEB published its booklet four years ago, but if so, why did Kinder Morgan give me an incorrect publication and why is there no updated version on the NEB website?
And why was a picture of the booklet cover featured prominently on an Aug. 28 email circular sent to me by Kinder Morgan?
Does the law now state that a pipeline company can go onto any land and do anything it wants any time it wants without any permission?
If so, it is unacceptable in a democratic society and is likely to lead to civil disobedience.
David Huntley, Burnaby
