Gas pipeline struggle heats up [in Toronto] – by John Spears (Toronto Star – July 4, 2013)

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A $623.7 million gas pipeline proposal in the GTA by Enbridge has sparked a struggle with rival pipeline firms and conservationists.

Conservationists and rival pipeline companies are challenging a $623.7 million proposal by Enbridge to build a big new natural gas pipeline in the Greater Toronto Area.

But the project’s critics have opposite objections. The conservationists say the pipeline is unnecessary, and will bring more environmentally questionable shale gas into Ontario. The rival pipelines, meanwhile, want to gain access to the Enbridge line precisely so they can bring more shale gas to customers in eastern Ontario and Quebec.

Enbridge’s plan for the new 47-kilometre pipeline through the GTA is now before the Ontario Energy Board. The company declined to talk about the proposal while it’s before the board. But in written material filed with the board, Enbridge says it needs more pipe because it has doubled the number of customers in the GTA over the past 20 years, when it last boosted its pipeline capacity in the region.

The new line will be a main artery, ranging from 36 to 42 inches in diameter. Built in two separate segments connected by existing lines, it will generally follow Highway 407 eastward from Winston Churchill Blvd. to a utility right of way east of Pharmacy Ave. in Scarborough, tand hen turn south to Sheppard Ave. E.

In its application, Enbridge says it needs the new line to be in service by 2015.

Without more supply, it warns, pressures at the pumping station serving downtown Toronto “are forecast to decline below the levels necessary to serve customers by the 2015/2016 heating season.”

The new line will also provide more security for Toronto’s gas supply, Enbridge said. Currently, the company says Toronto is overly dependent on a single distribution station near Pearson airport.

In a worst-case, though unlikely, scenario, it says, a failure there could knock out gas service to 270,000 customers. The new line would eliminate that risk.

But not everyone goes along with the application.

Enbridge says it wants to fill much of its new pipeline capacity with gas from the Marcellus shale formation extending from Virginia to New York. That gas is produced by fracking — breaking up underground rock formations to release the trapped gas.

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