Dear Editor:
Re: City says pipeline proposal 'incomplete' (Burnaby NOW, March 21).
Derek Corrigan now proclaims that he will "lie down in the mud" to stop Kinder Morgan expansion.
Assorted responses come to mind:
Sarcastic: Hopefully he won't claim his dry-cleaning expenses from taxpayers!
Cynical: Welcome to the other side of secretive processes for gathering public input constrained by tight deadlines and stacked committees. They are alienating - aren't they?
Pragmatic: There are actions other than posturing he can take - even given lack of jurisdiction over the expansion process.
First Derek can take to heart the suggestion from Ben West also reported in the NOW.
Ben believes that court challenges filed by Interior First Nations are the best practical lever for stopping the Kinder Morgan expansion (and, given lack of local jurisdiction, he is probably correct).
Derek could stop wasting civic money organizing and publicizing his already well-known (and widely shared) opposition to expansion and start putting civic money to better use supporting the First Nations in their court challenges. Derek could also use his Metro directorship to push other mayors in Metro Vancouver expressing opposition to
Kinder Morgan for civic funding to support the First Nations.
Second, Derek can play up the Species-At-Risk Act with its jagged fiscal teeth. The fines for harming habitat or members of listed species rapidly cumulate to many millions of dollars. And companies respond: see CN Rail.
CN contractors now gather coal at Silver Creek. They carefully move turtle eggs and pack turtles off-site. The large fines for failure to act appropriately motivate this effort.
Burnaby has two listed species-at-risk: Nooksack dace and western painted turtles. Hundreds of turtles and dace reside in the Brunette River Basin (including Burnaby Lake) directly downhill from the Kinder Morgan tank farm or pipeline and thus exposed to spills and construction run-off.
The due diligence that may protect Kinder Morgan from the Species-At-Risk Act - including extra thick pipe, robust oil spill containment barriers, and no-runoff construction methods - will also protect human residents in the pipeline corridor and substantially raise project costs. The higher expansion costs go, the less economically viable expansion becomes.
If Kinder Morgan finds that it cannot profitably move diluted bitumen - after designing and installing the technology to do so safely, given the lengthy required transit near endangered species habitat here in Burnaby and elsewhere along the route - then the application will be withdrawn.
The difference between green and "green-washed" thinking is stark.
Green thinking uses natural allies and defences - First Nations and endangered species - for leverage where jurisdiction is lacking. "Green-washed" thinking results in ineffective posturing given lack of jurisdiction.
Perhaps Mayor Corrigan is now willing to try green thinking. If so, I welcome him to the cause.
G. Bruce Friesen, Burnaby
