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OTTAWA—A biologist, an energy lawyer and an aboriginal geologist will sit down Tuesday in a recreation centre in the wilderness of northern British Columbia to initiate what could be the fiercest environmental standoff ever seen in Canada.
Before the hearings in B.C. and Alberta are completed next year, more than 4,000 people are expected to appear before the three-member panel vetting the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta through the Rockies to the B.C. coast.
Like the now-stalled Keystone XL project in the United States, the planned pipeline to carry tarsands-derived crude oil across the mountains to a new supertanker port in northern B.C. is shaping up as a titanic clash of economic and environmental imperatives.
Fear of pipeline leaks or a tanker spill that would foul some of the world’s most pristine forests and coastal areas has already galvanized unprecedented concern in the green movement, with some groups calling it the “defining environmental battle” of modern times. The army of opponents includes environmentalists from around North America, more than 100 aboriginal groups and thousands of other B.C. citizens. Star power will also be brought into play from the likes of Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio.
On the other side of the issue stand powerful oil interests touting such a pipeline as a crucial nation-building project that will enable Canada to cash in on its tarsands reserves by gaining access to energy-hungry China. Among its supporters, the industry counts none other than Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has staked much of his government’s energy strategy on finding new markets for oilsands crude.
Beginning Tuesday in the Haisla First Nation of Kitamaat village near the B.C. coast, the independent federal review panel — biologist Sheila Legget, energy lawyer Kenneth Bateman and aboriginal geologist Hans Matthews — will amass evidence to give a yes or no verdict on the pipeline. The review will decide if the $5.5 billion project is in Canada’s public interest and whether it meets federal environmental safety regulations, with a report expected in late 2013.
That’s a year later than the Harper government would have liked, but the panel had to make time to hear from the thousands of people who asked to present their views.
This outpouring of interest in the hearings was partly facilitated by green activists, who used social media to help sign up people to testify. The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative alone takes credit for facilitating testimony by 1,600 of the 4,000-plus people who are stepping forward to comment on the proposed pipeline.
“It’s all kinds of people,” explains Eric Swanson, who heads the Dogwood Initiative’s campaign to keep oil supertankers away from B.C.’s northern coast. “Ever since we started on this campaign, we’ve had people of all political stripes and backgrounds supporting our proposals to protect the coast from oil tankers.”
“For most British Columbians, this is about the coast, about oil tankers and about spills, emotionally and politically,” he said in an interview. More than 68,000 people have signed a petition to ban tankers from the province’s northern ports, Swanson added. “How big a fight does Stephen Harper want to pick?”
Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway is designed to carry 500,000 barrels a day of oil sands-derived crude from a terminal near Edmonton across the Rockies to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, where about 200 supertankers annually would dock to take on the petroleum for export to the U.S. and Asia.
The 1,172-kilometre line, which would cross hundreds of rivers and streams and pass through a region renowned for its salmon, wolves, bears and other wildlife, is seen as a threat to the environment and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. It has sparked an eruption of opposition among aboriginals, who maintain the project must be stopped at almost any cost.
“The Enbridge pipeline would risk an oil spill into our rivers and lands that would destroy our food supply, our livelihoods and our cultures,” said Chief Larry Nooski of Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in B.C. “Our laws do not permit crude oil pipelines into our territories. This project isn’t going anywhere.”
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