A hike through history on Burnaby Mountain
On Saturday June 17, 2017, Wilderness Committee staff took a small group of our donors on a short hike on Burnaby Mountain and through the Westridge neighbourhood where the Kinder Morgan pipeline terminates. The outing is one of the benefits of being an Oak or Pine level Wilderness Defender or Trailblazer.
Our small group met at the top of Burnaby Mountain where I gave a brief update on the campaign to stop the pipeline and we took in some beautiful views of Vancouver, Burrard Inlet and the coastline.
Folks had lots of questions about the financial health of the company and what steps our provincial government could take to stop the project.
We continued down to the two drilling sites where in 2014, over 100 protesters were arrested preventing Kinder Morgan from doing its seismic tests on the mountain. Those charges were dropped because the company had the wrong coordinates of its worksite.
After we stopped in the clearing where Kinder Morgan cut down 13 trees to do its work, we headed down a wall of stairs to our lunch site — just outside the pipeline terminal.
From there we wove through the Westridge neighbourhood to the spot where a construction crew breached the pipeline in 2007, coating 11 homes in 250,000 litres of oil and forcing the evacuation of 250 residents.
Kinder Morgan was at fault for that spill since they — once again — had the wrong GPS coordinates for their pipe. They gave the workers the all-clear to dig.
Finally, we climbed back up the mountain to take a last look at the beautiful inlet below. Everyone had a splendid time. Our youngest adventurer even found a bird’s nest to bring home with her to New York.
Thanks to all of our donors!
For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s a special message, just for you.
