It deeply concerns us that there is, at the very least, room for confusion around the preferred Burnaby route for Kinder Morgan's expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline and who may be affected by it (see story here).
When we contacted the company, they wouldn't say their route preference has changed, even though we've heard otherwise from readers and have evidence to back it up. To be fair, Kinder Morgan is not breaking any rules; they have always been considering two corridors, and the National Energy Board tells us it's not uncommon for companies to do this.
But if the railway tracks are now the preferred option, why doesn't Trans Mountain come out and say it, especially when the deadline to apply for intervenor status is next Wednesday.
We don't want to call it "bait and switch," but if some city folks thought that their property was next to the "preferred" route and others believed their property was close to the secondary choice, it could well mean the difference between getting involved or staying out of the process. Trans Mountain tells us they are contacting affected residents directly and anyone can go online to read the full application to see the map of the second route. (We spent a good hour looking through the 15,000 pages and couldn't find it.) But the application indicates that Lougheed is the preferred option, and the company's online map still only shows the Lougheed route.
We suspect this obfuscation is deliberate. If enough folks protest one route, the company can then say they listened to those folks and chose the least-opposed route. But if the preferred route is not the one residents believed it to be, it's a bit like sending the posse chasing after the riderless horse.
At the very least, Trans Mountain needs to come clean and tell everyone (not just selected residents) that their routing priorities have changed, and the deadline to apply for intervenor status needs to be extended so residents can properly prepare. The lesson? Apply for intervenor status regardless of which pipeline route you are concerned about.
