Will Enbridge spills kill XL and Gateway pipelines?
2012Barry Weisleder 2012-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 9 →
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A U.S. government enquiry into the July 25, 2010, spill of 843,444 gallons of crude oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, by Canada’s Enbridge Inc., has fueled doubts about such proposed pipelines as Keystone XL and Northern Gateway.
Environmental groups on both sides of the border seized upon the findings of the National Transportation and Safety Board to argue against expansion of Alberta tar sands. NTSB Chair Deb bie Hersman said Enbridge failed to ad equately address well-known corrosion problems as far back as 2005.
The public was stunned to learn that the pipeline rupture in a wetland in Marshall, Mich., became much worse af ter an incredible 17-hour delay to stop the flow of oil. Clean-up efforts contin ue, with costs exceeding U.S. $767 mil lion, not including the health impact on about 320 people who reported symp toms consistent with crude oil expo sure. For this, Enbridge faces the pros pect of a $3.7 million fine from the U.S. Department of Transportation—a mere slap on the wrist.
The real cost to Big Oil would be de nial of approval of the Keystone XL line, backed by Calgary-based TransCanada, which U.S. President Barack Obama is stalling until after the November elec tion. Keystone XL would deliver crude oil from the tar sands in Alberta to Tex as, while Enbridge’s Northern Gateway would take crude from Alberta to north ern British Columbia, where it would then be loaded on tankers for Asia.
The NTSB study faulted the contract ing-out of pipeline defect detection, as well as poor regulatory oversight (giv ing too much authority to private com panies to self-police), for the disastrous oil spill in Michigan.
In January, Enbridge opened a new “state of the art” Edmonton control cen tre, claiming it has incorporated lessons (Above) Protest outside U.S. Treasury Bldg. in Washington, DC, Nov. 6, 2011.
from its internal investigation into the Kalamazoo spill. But doubts persist, deepened by another Enbridge spill of 1000 barrels of oil in a Wisconsin field on July 27.
“How can we trust Enbridge to build two pipelines safely across nearly 800 rivers and streams in Alberta and Brit ish Columbia?” said Nikki Skuce, senior energy campaigner with ForestEthics. “Enbridge has the audacity to tell us that our coast will be safer with their oil supertankers travelling the treacherous waters off the northwest coast—this from a company who can’t even turn off a pipeline for 17 hours after an alarm goes off.”
“This should be the nail in the cof fin for the Northern Gateway pipeline,” said Greenpeace Canada spokesperson Keith Stewart. Pete Erickson, hereditary chief of Nakazdli in British Columbia, thinks this ruling will give opponents of the Northern Gateway ammunition to stop Enbridge’s plan.
“The risk is far too, too high,” he said. “They come around and throw money at us. We tell them you don’t understand. We don’t believe you have the technol ogy or the will to make this a safe proj ect. There’s no way to do it.”
And even if the safe pipeline technol ogy did exist, would it not be wiser to spend the money on green energy generation, rather than boiling oil out of tar sands and transporting it across continents and oceans? Given all the evidence of negative climate change, is it not urgent to wean the world off the burning of carbon?
At least two things should be per fectly clear by now. Profit will continue to trump environmental concerns so long as capitalism rules. And secondly, a mass action-oriented environmental movement, based on the working class, has the capacity to not only expose eco-crimes but to give birth to a better power. n SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2012 9
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mostly rural members, i.e., the names were products of their social milieu, not of a sectarian