According to the City of Burnaby’s lawyer, Greg McDade, there will not be a real hearing on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline project. Despite the many public statements by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Premier Christy Clark and Kinder Morgan, people opposing the project will not get an opportunity to properly present their case or to cross examine Kinder Morgan. They will submit written statements to the National Energy Board, with no assurance the panel will even read them.
McDade says that Burnaby has preparing for a public hearing since December, when Kinder Morgan filed it 55,000 page application.
Port Metro Vancouver (PMV) is not ready to make a decision regarding Surrey Fraser Dock’s application to build a Direct Transfer Facility to handle up to 4 million metric tonnes of coal at their facility in Surrey, B.C.
In a press release issued today, The Port said there are areas that it will “require further information (from Surrey Fraser Docks) , particularly around the assessment of the potential effects of the project on human health.”
The coal terminals in BC’s Lower Mainland are being enlarged to handle a great deal more cargo. The capacity of Neptune Terminals, in North Vancouver, has doubled. Westshore Terminals, in Delta, has applied to make a $230 million “upgrade.” It has yet to be seen if a new coal terminal will go in at Fraser Surrey Docks. Just before Burnaby’s council passed a resolution showing their opposition to the proposal, Mayor Derek Corrigan commented that BC is turning into a Banana Republic.
“Over and over again we decisions being made by bodies who are not independent,” said Mayor Corrigan. “Port Metro Vancouver is conducting this environmental assessment. The Majority of Directors on Port Metro Vancouver are appointed by the very companies that stand to economically benefit from these decisions. And so here you have a Board of Directors, appointed by the companies that us in charge of the environmental assessment to determine if they are going to make more money.”
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.
