Dear Editor:
Opposition to "twinning" the Kinder Morgan pipeline is misguided and harmful to both the environment and the economy.
Of course the Kinder Morgan pipeline should not be "twinned" to the Westridge Marine Terminal. Trying to navigate large tankers east of the Ironworker's Memorial Bridge is almost as insane as allowing the Gateway pipeline to Kitimat. A spill at any of the river crossings on the Gateway route, at Kitimat, or a Valdez-style incident would be almost impossible to clean up. Alaska has never completed cleanup of the Valdez spill.
However, there is an alternative. The Kinder Morgan pipeline has a tank farm and pumping station in Abbotsford. It then passes through Langley, Surrey and Delta before it crosses the Fraser River. There is also the Westport Coal Terminal at Tsawwassen. The Westport facility already handles large ships.
Negotiations should be entered into with the Tsawwassen Band to expand Westport to also be an oil terminal.
A new pipeline would then follow the Kinder Morgan right-of-way to Surrey or North Delta, where the new pipeline would need a right-of-way to Westport.
The current Kinder Morgan pipeline would then be used for the transport of fuel from the Alberta refineries and the transport of the crude for the Chevron refinery. Every bit of motor vehicle fuel and the fuel for the cruise ships comes through the Kinder Morgan pipeline. We need it if we don't all want to drive to Bellingham to fill our tanks and don't want to lose the cruise ship industry.
Stephen Walker, Burnaby
