The City of Burnaby’s Application for Leave to Appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal, about the NEB’s Ruling, is being served today.
By Roy L Hales
Kinder Morgan has filed an injunction against Burnaby residents preventing one of its crews from doing a feasibility study on Burnaby Mountain. At 5 pm Thursday, five defendants were served with a pile of legal documents “over three inches deep.” Simon Fraser University (SFU) professor Lynne Quarmby, SFU professor Stephen Collis, Adam Gold, Mia Nisson and Alan Dutton will appear in BC Supreme Court today at 2 pm today. The court will decide whether to “restrain” them from their “trespass upon Burnaby lands, and their wrongful obstruction, impeding, interfering with and prevention of” the pipeline company’s activities. Kinder Morgan is claiming it loses at least $5.5 million in direct costs and $88 million in lost revenue every month the Trans Mountain Pipeline project is delayed is also seeking a permanent injunction, damages, interest and cost. Yet the pipeline company is in the park against the City of Burnaby’s expressed wishes and it is not certain if the NEB ruling that gave the pipeline company access is legal.
The Federal Government responded within 24 hours of Vancouver’s calling for a referendumon Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain expansion project. Not by ensuring BC residents can obtain a proper hearing before the National Energy Board – Vancouver’s complaint – but by announcing stiffer regulations for oil spills. The title for this episode of the Kinder Morgan saga should be “BC’s Pipelines: The Empire Strikes Back!”
The next act in what some are already calling a struggle to Save the Salish Sea began on December 16, 2013, when Kinder Morgan filed an application to build and extend the 1,150-mile-long Trans Mountain pipeline that brings oil from Alberta to BC’s Lower Mainland. The impending hearings on BC’s Kinder Morgan Pipeline project could shape the province’s environmental prospects for decades.
