Environmental group says meetings nothing more than PR

Texas-based energy giant Kinder Morgan is asking for public feedback about their proposed provincewide pipeline project at a series of information sessions in and around Vancouver this month.

Open house sessions about the potential $4.1 billion expansion of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Metro Vancouver will take place Nov. 15 at Harbour Centre (515 Hastings St.) from 5 to 8 p.m. and the same time Nov. 17 at Aberthau Mansion (4397 West 2nd Ave.) in Point Grey.

As part of an ongoing tour of potentially affected communities, Kinder Morgan is also planning stops this month in Coquitlam, Surrey and Burnaby, the 1,150- kilometre pipeline's western terminus and the site of a 234,000-litre oil spill in 2007 after a construction crew ruptured one of their underground pipelines. The Burnaby terminal receives crude oil and refined products for temporary storage and distribution. It has 13 storage tanks with an overall volume of 1.6 million barrels.

The public will have a chance to hear the company's side of the controversial project, which would more than double the current capacity of 300,000 barrels of crude a day by twinning the existing pipeline that supplies tanker ships at a Kinder Morgan's Westridge Terminal in Burrard Inlet.

Wilderness Committee campaigner Ben West says the town hall meetings amount to little more than a public relations exercise.

"It's like one of those condo sales jobs where you look at a condo model and decide whether you're going to move in," said West. "It's not a legitimate process with any ability to give feedback to government about whether it should be approved or not. I see it more like a focus group session that people are volunteering to take part in."

He points out that Kinder Morgan has yet to either formally apply for the project to the National Energy Board (NEB) - expected to happen next year - or to publish a map of where specifically the new pipeline would run.

"They have these perspective maps from 10,000 feet above that roughly show the route of the existing pipeline, but it doesn't really tell you a hell of a lot. The existing route goes under malls, schools, people's yards, golf courses, and it was built back in 1952. My guess is that they are going to have to move it pretty substantially."

Kinder Morgan external relations manager Lexa Hobenshield says that while the details of the final application have yet to be finalized, the company still values input from concerned citizens.

"When people come into the sessions, they are handed a discussion guide that has a feedback form that is a formal way of submitting a comment," said Hobenshield. "The comments that are submitted will become part of the NEB application, so all of them will be taken into consideration. There is also section that outlines the timeline of the project and there will eventually be more detailed info sessions, but these are just more to hear the initial feedback from communities."

The Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, who own land on the shores of Burrard Inlet, has boycotted the information meetings and opposes the project.

"The Nation has experienced the results of crude oil handling and refining on Burrard Inlet for a number of decades. The risks associated with the pipeline expansion are just too great for its people to accept," the band said in a press release last week.

Vancouver city council, which voted to oppose the expansion, are also working on a new bylaw that will ensure the company has enough liability insurance to cover costs in the event of another major spill.

Details of the project as well as feedback forms are also available online at transmountain.com.

This story also ran in the Vancouver Courier on Monday, Nov. 12