The Wilderness Committee's Manitoba Field Office is holding town hall meeting Oct. 15 in Thompson on OmniTRAX's plans to ship oil by rail to Churchill. The meeting is at St. Lawrence Hall on Cree Road and begins at 7 p.m. A similar meeting is slated for Churchill Oct. 18.

 

OmniTRAX, a Denver-based short line railroad, hopes to transport 3.3 million barrels of crude oil annually on its Canadian subsidiary Hudson Bay Railway line from The Pas northeast through Thompson Junction and onto Churchill. Canada's oil producers are looking for a "Plan B" on Manitoba's coast as the proposed Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines futures remain unclear. The Port of Churchill is among a growing number of potential options for diversifying oil exports as production climbs and major pipeline proposals face lengthy regulatory delays.

 

The number of rail cars used to transport oil in Canada has more than tripled over the last two years, rising from a low of 4,549 in June of 2011 to 14,217 this past April, according to a recent report by Poten & Partners, a global broker and commercial advisor for the energy and ocean transportation industries.

 

The Hudson Bay Railway was created in 1997 by OmniTRAX, the same year it took over operation of the Port of Churchill. It operates 627 miles of track in Manitoba between The Pas and Churchill.

 

"Shipping crude oil through such a unique and delicate stretch of wilderness is incredibly risky, and people from all over the province have been speaking out against the idea," said Eric Reder, campaign director for the Wilderness Committee in Manitoba.

 

The Wilderness Committee has engaged hundreds of supporters to write to the Manitoba government, and recently the province announced its opposition to the oil- shipping proposal, as it stands now.

 

Doug Clark, an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan's School of Environment and Sustainability and the university's Centennial Chair in Human Dimensions of Environment and Sustainability, reportedly told a Wilderness Committee's Manitoba Field Office town hall meeting at the University of Winnipeg's Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall Oct. 8 that "every once in a while something comes along that's such a manifestly bad idea that you don't need to analyze it."

 

Clark, a board member of the Society for Conservation Biology's social science working group, specializes academically in "polar bear-human conflicts." He spent 12 years between 1990 and 2002 as park warden at Pacific Rim, Auyuittuq, Quttinirpaaq, and Kluane and served as the first chief warden of Wapusk National Park, just east of Churchill. Wapusk protects the largest polar bear inland denning area in North America. To the southeast lays the Hudson James Lowlands, the largest peatland in North America. The Hudson Bay seacoast is where three major biomes meet: marine, Northern Boreal Forest and tundra.

 

Reder told the Nickel Belt News in an e-mail Oct. 8 Clark will not be here in Thompson for the Oct. 15 town hall meeting but a 20-minute or so video of his Oct. 8 presentation at the University of Winnipeg will be played, as will be the case in Churchill Oct. 18.

 

Thompson NDP MLA Steve Ashton, the province's minister of infrastructure and transportation – and the minister responsible for provincial emergency measures – said last month in light of the deadly train derailment in Lac Mégantic, Que., in July, Manitoba can't support the shipment of crude oil through its fragile Hudson Bay lowlands to the Port of Churchill.

 

"Lac Mégantic was a wake-up call for all Canadians," Ashton said. "If there were concerns before, there are 10 times the concerns now. We have to make sure there is not a precipitous move – by OmniTRAX or anyone else – (toward) shipment in this area." Ashton urged OmniTRAX to "go back to the drawing board on this."

 

Ashton told the Thompson Chamber of Commerce Oct. 9 the province had outlined its views on the issue to OmniTRAX in correspondence in May and August and that he personally met with the company Oct. 7.

 

A test shipment of 330,000 barrels of light sweet crude oil crude oil was originally scheduled for this fall, but it has now been postponed until next year.

 

The Wilderness Committee remains strongly opposed to the OmniTRAX plan because of the climate change implications of increasing fossil fuel shipments, as well as the risk of an oil spill that would cause irreversible damage to the local environment, it says. The rail line passes through remote terrain and sensitive wildlife habitat, and the Churchill region is a world-famous tourist destination for viewing iconic – and threatened – Arctic species such as polar bears and beluga whales, Reder said.

 

"The announcement from the Manitoba government was a big step in the right direction, but this proposal isn't dead yet. Now we're focused on spreading the word and urging the federal transport minister to put a stop to these plans once and for all," said Reder.

 

Under the federal Railway Safety Act, OmniTRAX does not require any specific permit to transport oil by rail, Brian Williamson, a regional communications officer with the Prairie and Northern Region of Transport Canada in Winnipeg, said in a Sept. 19 e-mail to the Nickel Belt News.

 

"Should OmniTRAX proceed with its plans, Transport Canada Rail Safety and Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) inspectors will monitor operations for compliance with the Railway Safety Act and Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and regulations," Williamson said. "This includes verifying that the track is compliant with the Track Safety Rules prior to the trial shipment of oil, as well as monitoring for compliance with applicable rail equipment, rail operating and transportation of dangerous goods rules, regulations and standards.

 

"Transport Canada's oversight role includes monitoring railway companies for compliance with rules, regulations and standards, as well as the overall safety of railway operations through audits, inspections, and investigations, and takes appropriate action as required.

 

"Under the Railway Safety Act, railway companies are responsible for the safety of their rail line infrastructure, railway equipment and operations. This includes ongoing inspection, testing and maintenance programs in accordance with regulatory requirements.

 

"Shipments of oil and gas must comply with the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, its regulations and standards.

 

"The Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act establishes the requirements for transporting a dangerous good in the proper means of containment for a mode of transport. It also establishes requirements for proper classification, training, reporting, safety marks and documentation. There are over 30 million shipments of dangerous goods every year in Canada with 99.999 percent of them reaching their destinations without incident," Williamson added.

 

Once the oil reaches the Port of Churchill, "OmniTRAX is subject to Part 8 of the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 whereby operators of oil handling facilities that load or unload oil from vessels are required to have an Oil Pollution Emergency Plan (OPEP) in place which details pollution contingency and response plans based on local conditions," Williamson said. "The OPEP must be submitted to Transport Canada for review. Transport Canada reviews the OPEP for compliance with applicable regulations and rules for Oil Handling Facilities under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. Transport Canada inspects Oil Handling Facilities to verify compliance with the regulations and confirms that an OPEP is in place."

 

While Manitoba's NDP government opposes OmniTRAX's current oil shipping plan, maritime and rail transportation of oil is a matter of federal, not provincial jurisdiction.

 

OmniTRAX operates a network of 16 regional and short line railroads that cover 10 states in the United States and three provinces in Canada. The company's railroads interchange with BNSF Railway, Canadian National (CN), CSX Corporation, Norfolk Southern Railway and Union Pacific Railroad and transport commodities within the agricultural, aggregate and industrial mineral, energy, food, chemical, lumber, metal, petroleum and plastic industries.

 

OmniTRAX, Inc is an affiliate of The Broe Group and was founded in 1986 and is privately owned by Pat Broe, who founded the company in Denver in 1972 as a real estate asset management firm.

 

OmniTRAX also operates and manages terminal and intermodal facilities where services such as railcar switching, container handling, ramp, de-ramp and carrier management are provided.

 

The Port of Churchill has the largest fuel terminal in the Arctic and is North America's only deep water Arctic seaport that offers a gateway between North America and Mexico, South America, Europe and the Middle East. OmniTRAX, Inc. bought the track from CN in 1997 for $11 million. It took over the related Port of Churchill, which opened in 1929, when it acquired it from Canada Ports Corporation, for a token $10 soon after buying the rail line. The deep-water port is looking to diversify its customer base following last year's dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board, its preeminent customer for many years. Major customers have included the Canadian Wheat Board, Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting (Hudbay), Tolko Manitoba, Gardewine North, Manitoba Hydro and various grain merchandisers.