British Columbia proposes regulations and a possible moratorium on tar sands export — welcome news for the Pacific Northwest, under threat from oil tanker traffic.

 

Activists hold banners that say ‘Stop Kinder Morgan’ at the Oil-Free Salish Sea Camp, a regional training for the growing movement of water-based fossil fuel resistance in the Pacific Northwest. The purpose of the gathering is to strengthen on-water resistance to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. The project directly threatens the health of local communities and ecosystems, as well as global climate.

 

The Canadian province of British Columbia just took a big step that could halt the expansion of a risky tar sands pipeline that could put the waters of the Pacific Northwest at risk from a disastrous oil spill.

 

While the Keystone XL pipeline has grabbed most of the headlines here in the U.S., it is not the only pipeline being proposed that would aid the expansion of Canada’s bitumen, or tar sands, fields — one of the dirtiest energy sources on the planet. The Trans Mountain Expansion Project would expand a pipeline running from Alberta’s tar sands west to a marine terminal in Vancouver, BC.

 

But today the provincial government of British Columbia said “no thanks” and proposed what is essentially a temporary moratorium on new tar sands transport until further scientific review on the risks of diluted bitumen spills into ocean environments.

 

The Tar Sands Threat to the Salish Sea:

Many Americans probably haven’t heard of Kinder Morgan, but the Texas-based pipeline giant is already in the early stages of construction for its expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. In response, legal challenges and resistance from communities along the route have already begun.

If completed, the pipeline would lead to hundreds more oil tankers traveling through the Salish Sea area off the coast of Seattle, and up and down the Pacific coast, every year. Oil tankers and barges load up with diluted bitumen (or “dilbit”) at Kinder Morgan’s terminal in Vancouver and then transport it to refineries in Washington, Oregon, California, and across the Pacific to Asia.

 

Any oil spilled into water is a disaster and extremely challenging to clean up. Even under ideal conditions, only a fraction of spilled oil can be recovered by traditional clean-up techniques such as booming and skimming. Bitumen is an extremely dense form of oil that must be mixed, or diluted, with lighter oils in order for it to flow in a pipeline. When dilbit is spilled into water, its components can separate, with the lighter components evaporating and the heavier bitumen sinking. A study by the National Academies found that the properties of this type of oil can lead to additional risks and clean-up complications.

 

Case in point: In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured sending 20,000 barrels into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The bitumen sunk to the bottom of the river, triggering a years-long, billion-dollar clean-up operation that required dredging the river bottom.

 

Expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline will increase the risk of a spill for communities along the route, and would also increase the risk of a tanker or barge accident off the Pacific coast. The track record of both pipelines and oil tankers shows that accidents will inevitably happen. Not surprisingly a number of affected communities and governments have declared they don’t want to play this game.

 

The Thin Green Line Gets Stronger

The provincial government in British Columbia campaigned on its opposition to the Trans Mountain expansion, and today it flexed its muscle by proposing regulations on dilbit transportation, including a temporary moratorium. While many details are still to come, the province proposed creating an independent scientific advisory panel to address scientific uncertainties associated with oil spills into water, and also proposed “regulatory restrictions” on any increase in dilbit transportation.

All of this means that the best case scenario for Kinder Morgan might well be years of delays and court fights. Banks like JPMorgan Chase, TD, and Barclays — who funded the Trans Mountain project— should pay close attention to today’s news and end their support for risky, controversial, unwanted projects like these.

 

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