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Enbridge playing project catch up Pipeline company admits it underestimated depth of resistance to Northern Gateway; won’t ignore ‘misleading statements’ from enviros Gary Park For Petroleum News
Enbridge is fighting back to keep its Northern Gateway project alive, after almost a decade of hoping that the less it said publicly the better its chances of building the twin pipelines to export 525,000 barrels per day of oil sands bitumen from the British Columbia coast and importing 193,000 bpd of condensate.
But, as fast as it emerges from the shadows, the big pipeline company is facing a round of court challenges.
Things are so bad that Janet Holder, Enbridge’s executive vice president who is the company’s point person on Northern Gateway, has conceded her company missed a chance from the outset to present its case for the project to the people of British Columbia.
In an interview with Global TV, Holder said she was aware of the debate around the project when she became project lead in 2011, but she had no idea how impassioned it would become.
“I wasn’t totally naive, but it was definitely different than I thought it would be,” she said, adding that although Enbridge has been meeting with northern communities on a regular basis, it has not spent enough time with the rest of the province.
JRP recommended approval Although a Joint Review Panel, JRP, of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has recommended Canadian government approval of the project provided 209 conditions are met, leaders of the First Nations Summit and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs want the B.C. government to reject the federal panel’s findings.
“It has always been our philosophy to bring (the First Nations) on as partners. We talk to each First Nation as an individual nation,” Holder said.
“What’s important is we spend the time to understand what it is they can do, what they want to do, what their concerns are and how we can address them. We need to engage with each nation and understanding their individual issues,” she said.
Holder also admits that Enbridge has yet to have open discussions with the British Columbia government on the five conditions that must be met to gain the province’s support, the most subjective being that the province “receives a fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits.”
She said talks to this point has been confined to the value of the project, what it offers First Nations and how much it will contribute to provincial tax revenues and employment.
Locking horns with environmental coalition On the environmental front, Enbridge is locking horns with a coalition of the Dogwood Initiative, ForestEthics Advocacy, Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research and West Coast Environmental Law, who conducted a poll claiming that the Canadian government is considering allowing crude oil supertankers to use the British Columbia Inside Passage on their way to open waters.
Enbridge said it has committed not to use the Inside Passage, during the regulatory process and directly to activists.
“When people make misleading statements about our project, it’s our responsibility to correct the record,” said Northern Gateway communications manager Ivan Giesbrecht.
He said the environmental coalition released its poll results based on “misleading statements (designed) to generate a biased result” that 50 percent of British Columbians “strongly” oppose the project, 12 percent “strongly” support it and 17 percent somewhat support the project, with the rest undecided.
Request to quash JRP report Separately, First Nations and 10 environmental groups are asking the Federal Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal (it is unclear which court has jurisdiction) to quash the JRP report, or order the reopening of the review.
They claim the JRP made errors in law and ignored key environmental considerations, while alleging that aboriginal communities were not fully consulted.
The Gitga’at First Nation, which has 14 reservations along the pipeline right of way, said the project threatens its social, cultural and economic wellbeing, arguing the community has not surrendered its aboriginal rights and title.
Willms & Shier, an environmental law firm, said it is uncertain whether the pending appeals can delay a final government decision.
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