Cdn Energy Board stops Enbridge push to the east
B. McPherson
Enbridge Group that moves petroleum products has faced stiff
opposition from environmentalists in its push to move Tar Sands bitumen to
Canada’s coastlines. Increasing opposition from British Columbians to their
scheme to build a pipeline to the Pacific Coast has them looking at pipelines
to the east that they already control.
Those pipelines have been configured to carry refined,
imported oil from the Atlantic Coast, west to Ontario and Quebec.
Enbridge has applied to reconfigure them to carry the sandy
petroleum product to the coastal refineries on the Atlantic coast or for export
to foreign countries. The plan was to start moving the diluted bitumen(dilbit)
in Line 9B in November.
While one of the things that Enbridge likes to emphasize in
attempting to convince people that their pipelines would be an asset, is the
safety of moving petroleum products by pipeline. Today the Canadian Energy
Board put paid to that premise when they ruled that Enbridge’s proposal to
reverse the flow in their aging pipelines has not met safety regulations.
One of the demands of the Energy Board was to have all major
waterways protected in the case of a pipeline breach. The requirement calls for
protection of the waterways by the installation of shut off valves within a
kilometre, one on each side of the waterway. The Energy Board in their letter
advising Enbridge of their ruling notes that only six of the 104 required
valves have been installed and that some of them are 10 kilometres or more from
the waterways.
The Board also stated that just because Enbridge people
state that a waterway is not major, that isn’t necessarily so.
Upon review, the
Board is not persuaded that Enbridge meets the requirements of Condition 16 of
the Order and therefore, the Board does
not approve Enbridge’s submissions. Energy Board of Canada
Enbridge Inc. is the major mover of petroleum products in
Canada.
Sources:
Comments
Post a Comment