Dear Editor:
Re: Risks outweigh benefits (Letters to the editor, Burnaby NOW, Jan.19)
This letter states the truth of the matter with regard to the Kinder Morgan pipeline project. As B.C. Premier John Horgan has similarly indicated, it is simply too risky or dangerous.
As a former senior industrial hygienist involved with coordinating the enforcement of industrial health and safety regulations in B.C., I am particularly concerned with the fact that Transport Canada, which is responsible for enforcing safety regulations under the Canada Shipping Act, appears to have sat on its hands with regard to providing a rigorous assessment of specific emergency plans in the event of an ocean spill involving diluted bitumen. As stated in regulations governing either industrial or shipping operations, those emergency plans must adequately provide for the containment and disposal of hazardous materials in the event of a spill.
With this project, not only is the spill response capacity over time grossly limited, as the letter states, the scientific information plainly supports the fact that it is also highly problematic as diluted bitumen sinks in salt water when battered by waves and mixed with sediments. In other words, one could hardly put together a more effective scenario for a total catastrophe in the event of a major ocean spill.
Regardless of how much money Prime Minister Justin Trudeau throws at the problem, the technology is simply not available for the adequate cleanup of such a spill. It is therefore not surprising that, in 2015, Kinder Morgan worked diligently to seek and obtain a National Energy Board ruling which permitted the corporation to keep the full details of its emergency plans secret.
I believe British Columbians and Canadians at large must wake up to the fact that we are dealing with a whitewashed, stonewalling situation where a project has been pushed through which does not comply with spill response safety regulations, and which presents a very real and extreme danger to our West Coast environment.
Not only do the risks outweigh the benefits, I believe it is a situation which is ethically, morally and legally delinquent.
John Sbragia, Burnaby
