Former Enron company too great a risk to B.C. salmon, jobs and communities

Dec 16, 2013

VICTORIA – US energy company Kinder Morgan (formerly Enron Liquid Pipelines) today filed an application with the National Energy Board to build a new pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to Burnaby and ship diluted bitumen in over 400 tankers per year through the heart of Vancouver, across the Salish Sea and through the Gulf Islands, putting jobs and coastal communities at risk, according to Sierra Club BC’s Campaigns Director, Caitlyn Vernon.

“Why would we put B.C. jobs, families and our children’s future in the hands of a former Enron company with a track record of oil spills and safety violations,” asked Vernon. “The proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline and over 400 tankers per year would pose a daily danger to B.C.’s salmon rivers and coast that so many families depend on for jobs and recreation.”

“For Kinder Morgan, pipeline spills are merely the cost of doing business. But for British Columbians, toxic spills of diluted bitumen into salmon rivers will negatively impact our health, jobs, property values, and the environment we all depend on.”

“The proposed tanker route is a ‘high risk’ area, and the provincial government has acknowledged that effective oil spill clean-up is impossible under many scenarios on the B.C. coast. Instead of investing in the possibility of toxic jobs in oil-spill clean-up, why not invest in green jobs instead? Building retrofits, renewable energies and low-carbon transportation options already provide more jobs, than the oil and gas industry.”

Over 130 First Nations have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration opposing tar sands pipelines, and the Union of BC Municipalities passed a motion opposing oil tanker expansion on the BC coast.

“What doesn’t spill into salmon rivers or the ocean will spill into the atmosphere as carbon pollution, causing global warming,” said Vernon. “Building any new tar sands pipeline is reckless and downright irresponsible in a world where extreme weather events, droughts and acidifying oceans have become our daily reality.”

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Caitlyn Vernon, Campaigns Director | Sierra Club BC
250.896.3500 | caitlyn@sierraclub.bc.ca