NEB launches restrictive participation application for Kinder Morgan pipeline review
Vancouver Sun
Critics assail process, say online system was made intentionally difficult
A new, “onerous” application process will discourage public participation in a federal review of the $5.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, according to critics of the project.
The application process for participating in the review opened Wednesday and closes at noon on Feb. 12.
To participate in the hearings or write a letter, a person must apply to the National Energy Board (NEB) by creating a log-in account or using an existing one with a bank.
People can also have an application mailed to them.
Wilderness Committee campaigner Eoin Madden said the online process and form is complicated, particularly for people with little or no Internet experience.
NEB officials could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Rules introduced by the federal Conservative government in 2012 stipulate that only people directly affected by the project or who have relevant information or expertise can participate.
“They’re playing a sort of a game where they don’t want to be overtly, very clearly trying to keep people out of the process; however, that is what it is designed to do,” Madden said.
The NEB’s website provides some guidance on what could constitute being directly affected, including property, financial and aboriginal interest. The federal Conservatives made the participation rule changes to speed up the NEB reviews, which almost always result in approval.
Enbridge’s proposed $6.5-billion Northern Gateway project was slowed when more than 1,000 people signed up to provide testimony in community hearings. The NEB was also inundated with thousands of letters from opponents, many of them form letters that came through environmental groups. At the time, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver expressed concern that “foreign special-interest groups” had “hijacked” the regulatory process.
The NEB approved the Northern Gateway project last month, which now must receive the go-ahead from federal government.
Burnaby-Douglas NDP MP Kennedy Stewart said the call Wednesday for applications to participate in the review will be a “nasty” surprise for Burnaby residents and others along the Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker route.
“With no press release or fanfare by the NEB and a short application period, many people who live or work on the proposed pipeline and tanker routes may not discover that they can participate in these hearings until it is too late to register,” he said.
Kinder Morgan has proposed tripling capacity of its existing Trans Mountain pipeline to nearly 900,000 barrels per day. That would result in a sixfold increase in oil tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet, to 408 round trips a year.
Photo: Kinder Morgan's marine terminal in Burnaby, BC (Joe Foy)
