Level of risk questioned at hearings
The proposed Northern Gateway project shouldn't just meet existing building codes, it must exceed them, according to an expert witness Tuesday at National Energy Board hearings.
Praveen Malhotra, who filed evidence on behalf of the Haisla Nation, said a project on the scale of the Northern Gateway pipeline can't adequately quantify its risks by relying solely on the building code. He said the company should instead undertake to do a risk-based design.
"You can never eliminate risk, but at least you can know what risk you're taking," Malhotra said under questioning from Northern Gateway lawyer Kathleen Shannon.
Northern Gateway is seeking to build a pipeline to carry Alberta oil sands products to Kitimat for shipment to Asia. A Joint Review Panel (JRP) of the National Energy Board is examining the company's environmental assessment and will issue a recommendation on whether or not the federal cabinet should issue a certificate by the end of next year.
In her questioning, Shannon pointed out the the building code was produced by experts and suggested those experts wouldn't say that it's required to exceed their recommendations. Malhotra replied that since the code is consensus based, it becomes an average of the opinions of a number of experts and said there's nowhere in the code that says it will help builders meet their risk targets.
In response to one specific area Malhotra is concerned about in the code, Shannon pointed to a commitment Northern Gateway has made not to use the "two-thirds rule" in assessing return rates for seismic events.
Northern Gateway spokesman Paul Stanway said the company believes it has addressed many of the concerns Malhotra raised in his report through reply evidence and erratas filed on the record with the JRP.
"I wasn't really sure that [Malhotra] was familiar with the information we have filed since he did his original analysis," Stanway said. "I think we've answered if not all, at least the vast majority of the questions he had with the original application."
Malhotra said it would be to Northern Gateway's benefit to use the risk-based approach because it would give them a better idea of exactly the risks they would be facing and the potential for financial losses if disaster struck.
"There's a price associated with risk," he said.
Malhotra said the tank farm in Kitimat and the pipeline itself can face risk anywhere along the route due to seismic activity and Northern Gateway needs to conduct a commutative assessment to determine the true risk. He wasn't able to answer a question from JRP member Kenneth Bateman about how long such a risk-based study would take because Malhotra wasn't sure how much seismic data is available for remote areas along the planned route.
In questioning another Haisla expert witness, Ellen Rathje, Shannon also aimed to show the company had taken her concerns about possible geo hazards along the pipeline into consideration in its updated filings.
Rathje credited the company for the steps it has taken in producing a map showing risks, but said there's still more work to be done.
"While the approach is getting closer, I don't think these maps are complete at this time," she said, noting that although the company re-routed the pipeline away from areas of sensitive marine clay it didn't indicate the clay deposits on its maps.
Rathje and Malhotra were the last intervener witnesses to testify in Prince George.
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