Despite rejecting Northern Gateway, is the BC government doing everything in its power to enable it?
In a media scrum following the release of the Joint Review Panel’s report and recommendation on the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines project, a reporter recalling what BC Premier Christy Clark had said about denying Enbridge permits and electricity for the pipelines if they did not meet the province's "five conditions", asked BC Minister of Environment Mary Polak if in reality BC actually has the power and the ability to stop the project.
Minister Polak told the reporter, and therefore the public, that the BC government has not followed through on the threats of October 2012, and that in fact they had already issued licenses and permits for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipelines, and made offers of tenure to one of their numbered companies as well. Instead, she chose to evade the issue and spoke more about the five conditions.
We need to hold Premier Clark and her cabinet to account. Their five conditions have not been met. According to the BC government they do not think the conditions could be met. Neither do most British Columbians. As our BC government said in their written final argument, “trust us” is not good enough.
Promises made and actions quietly taken
Three months after our BC government outlined its five conditions for heavy oil pipeline consideration in July 2012, Premier Christy Clark implied a threat to deny regulatory permits and withhold electricity needed for proposed pipelines if they did not meet their five demands. In their May and June 2013 final arguments regarding the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines project, the BC government stated its opposition to the project; their five conditions had not been met. Nor have they been met to date for that matter.
Through news articles from November 22, 2013, I learned that a company owned by Enbridge Inc., 8056587 Canada Inc., had applied to the BC government for a run of river project on the Clore River 60 kilometres southeast of Terrace. Enbridge spokesperson Ivan Giesbrecht stated Enbridge had received a license to carry out investigative assessments into the feasibility of that run-of-river project.
A search of the BC government Applications and Reasons for Decision (ARFD) web site at the time did not show an application for the Clore run of river project, however, it did reveal that 8056587 Canada Inc. had applied for four investigative works licenses for run of river power projects northeast of Prince George and one for a corresponding power transmission line which would connect to the BC Hydro grid at Bear Lake.
Those projects were referenced in a December 12 article where it was reported that Enbridge Inc., through an anonymous numbered company, is seeking to build an undisclosed number of hydroelectric projects; Enbridge is saying they are part of the company’s green energy plans and are not being built to power pumps for the company’s proposed 1,177-kilometre Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat. The article also stated that Enbridge has applied for and received an investigative licence to conduct preliminary assessment work at possible project sites in B.C. and Alberta.
I continued to monitor the ARFD web site, and on December 30, 2013, I noticed a new posting of applications from 8056587 Canada Inc. for investigative works for four run of river power projects and their transmission lines near Terrace, including one for the Clore River.
Do the nine 8056587 Canada Inc. run of river and power line projects have anything to do with the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines project? Some coincidences and inconsistencies between the two have me believing they are definitely linked.
1) The four run of river power projects northeast of Prince George will be connected to the BC Hydro grid at Bear Lake. There is an Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines pump station proposed for Bear Lake.
2) The Clore run of river power project’s tunnel intake is near the confluence of the Clore and Burnie rivers. So is the eastern portal of the Clore tunnel for the pipelines.
3) The Clore run of river power project’s tunnel is stated to be 6,400 metres long and is approximately 3.7 metres in diameter. The Clore tunnel for the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines project is stated to be 6479 metres in length and is a “hypothetical” 5 metres in diameter.
4) The new 47 kilometre power transmission line from the Clore River run of river power project will run east. There is an Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines pump station proposed for the Houston area, which is to the east.
5) The new power transmission lines from two of the other northwest run of river projects will join the BC Hydro grid at Highway 37 between Kitimat and Terrace, and the fourth will join southeast of Terrace. There is an Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines pump station proposed between Terrace and Kitimat.
6) Each of the eight run of river project applications states “It is expected that project approvals will be received by mid-2014, with construction starting at that time, and the Project becoming operational in 2016.” This coincides with the due date of the federal government decision on and Enbridge Northern Gateway’s anticipated start of construction of their pipelines project.
7) According to news reports, Enbridge representative Ivan Giesbrecht said the company had already received licences to carry out investigative works for their run of river projects. According to BC government staff at the tenure issuing offices in Prince George and Smithers, offers of tenure were sent to 8056587 Canada Inc. on August 15, 2013 for the projects northeast of Prince George, and on December 9 for the Clore and the other three projects near Terrace.
Also according to the government staff as of January 8, 8056587 Canada Inc. has not signed the offers of tenure and returned them to the BC government for license execution. In an e-mail to Enbridge January 7 referring to Ivan Giesbrecht’s comments about having the licenses, I asked them to provide me the dates of issuance. I have not had a reply. If these run of river projects are part of their green energy plan, why in the past four and a half months have representatives of 8056587 Canada Inc. not entered into the tenure agreements?
While the run of river project correlation to the pipelines project may be speculative, other Enbridge tenure applications I found on the ARFD web site aren’t. Under the name of Northern Gateway Pipelines Limited Partnership are 33 geotechnical investigative work and harvesting authorization applications for the proposed pipelines that were posted between February and October 2013; 19 of them have been offered tenures to date.
Some temporary use permits, special use permits and licences to cut have been executed and issued under the name of Northern Gateway Pipelines Inc. (the government cannot issue tenures in the name of a limited partnership). Another entry in the name of Enbridge Gateway Pipelines Inc., submitted in 2006 for works in Kitimat Arm, is in status of “application under review”.
Access article: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/opinion/enbridge-quietly-expands-bc-electricity-projects-while-bcs-five-conditions-remain-unmet?page=0,0