The City of Burnaby is not a pristine wilderness park.
Historically speaking, the Kinder Morgan pipeline has had very little environmental impact on the City of Burnaby. In 60 years of existence, there have been some small – and they ARE small – leaks, largely due to human error affecting the pipeline. At the time the pipeline was built, there were fewer houses and less people impacted. Times have changed and houses and infrastructure have blossomed over the existing Kinder Morgan pipeline, increasing the chance of a non-Kinder Morgan party accidentally tampering with the pipeline as they dig up surrounding infrastructure. However, I don’t think that is a reason to block an upgrade/expansion to the pipeline any more than I think digging up a sewerage line to upgrade it for the 10,000 new people moving into a new condo development should be prevented.
Meanwhile, the mayor and his environmental supporters are out there screaming about the potential environmental hazard of a pipeline going under Burnaby Mountain – a mountain which is hardly a pristine environment with a restaurant, several roads, a university, sports dome and concrete supplier on it! I think it is irrational to even try and protest this when one considers the amount of devastation to the environment that has occurred in the City of Burnaby around the existing pipeline over the last 60 years as houses, condos, roads and infrastructure were built to support a city that grew from approximately 75,000 to 225,000 – the pipeline will be invisible, the Burnaby forests that have been removed to build houses are gone forever!
Kinder Morgan does not live in a vacuum and is no doubt acutely aware the citizens of Burnaby don’t want a major oil spill. Let’s just work with Kinder Morgan to make sure that doesn’t happen – Burnaby is not a wilderness park deserving of environmental protection, but it is a nice place to live!
Sally Gillies, Burnaby
