Trans Mountain pipeline

In February 1947, large oil deposits were discovered near Leduc, Alberta. The idea for a pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia quickly emerged, driven by the growing demand for oil both in Asia and on the west coast of Canada and the United States. One element seen as a benefit to the project were defence implications, with availability of oil infrastructure being beneficial to both the Canadian and US militaries. On March 21, 1951, the Trans Mountain Pipeline Company Trans Mountain was created when the Canadian Parliament granted the company a charter under a special act of parliament. The proposal for the pipeline was immediately submitted to the Board of Transport Commissioners and was approved. Construction began in February 1952 and the final section was welded in place near Aldergrove, British Columbia on October 17, 1952. Canadian Bechtel Ltd. was responsible for engineering, design, and construction of the project. Ownership of the company was split between Canadian Bechtel Ltd. and Standard Oil. In August 1953, crude oil from Edmonton, Alberta, began flowing to refineries in the Vancouver area and the northwestern U.S. through TMPL. Prior to 1983, the only product TMPL carried was crude oil to supply refineries in the Vancouver area and to the state of Washington. TMPL and oil refineries Shell, Petro-Canada, and Imperial closed refineries in British Columbia in the 1990s and expanded their refineries in the Edmonton area following the TMPL construction. TMPL had the capacity to carry refined products, as well as crude oil via the batch system. Spill history , TMPL had reported approximately 84 spills to Canada's National Energy Board since 1961. Although a majority occurred at contained zones such as pumping stations, and a majority were below the mandatory reporting threshold of 1.5 cubic metres, there were some significant spill events. In Abbotsford in 2005, a ruptured pipeline dumped of crude oil. The company attributed the accident to activity on a neighbouring property. In 2007, in Burnaby, a contractor working on a sewage project for the city of Burnaby ruptured a pipeline, causing spillage of of crude oil. Some of it flowed into Burrard Inlet via the Burnaby storm sewer system. Most of it was recovered. Eleven houses were sprayed with oil, and about 225–250 residents were evacuated or left voluntarily. Cleanup took more than a year. In 2009, in Burnaby of crude oil were released from a tank at the Trans Mountain Burnaby Terminal. Most of it flowed into a containment area. In Sumas in 2012 of light crude oil leaked from a Sumas Mountain holding tank. All of it flowed into a containment area. In 2020, in Sumas, of light crude leaked from small pipe connected to mainline. Trans Mountain reported on June 14 that the spill was contained on the property and that groundwater was monitored for contamination. ==Trans Mountain Expansion Project==

On June 18, 2013, Kinder Morgan filed an application with the National Energy Board pursuant to Part III of the National Energy Board Act The second pipeline was to run roughly parallel to the existing pipeline, between Edmonton and Burnaby (east of Vancouver) and to be used to transport diluted bitumen, also known as dilbit. The additional pipeline requires 12 new pumping stations. The proposed expansion, with of pipe, would increase the system's capacity from . In 2013, the cost of completing the connection between Strathcona County and Burnaby was estimated at $6.8 billion. managed pipelines Kinder Morgan had the support at the time of several large petroleum industry customers for the expansion (BP Canada Energy Trading Co., Canadian Natural Resources, Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., Cenovus Energy Inc., Devon Canada Corp., Husky Energy Marketing Inc., Imperial Oil Ltd., Nexen Marketing Inc., Statoil Canada Ltd., Suncor Energy Marketing Inc., Suncor Energy Products Partnership, Tesoro Refining & Marketing Co. and Total E&P Canada Ltd). In 2016, the B.C. government said it did not support Trans Mountain, partly because Kinder Morgan had not provided enough information about its proposed spill prevention and spill clean-up program. On November 29, 2016, the federal cabinet approved the expansion project, announcing that the approval was "subject to 157 binding conditions that will address potential Indigenous, socio-economic and environmental impacts, including project engineering, safety and emergency preparedness." On January 11, 2017, B.C. Premier Christy Clark announced British Columbia's support for the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, saying the project met her government's five conditions for approval and included a revenue-sharing agreement worth up to $1 billion. In 2018, the federal government created a Crown corporation, the Trans Mountain Corporation (TMC), when it bought the pipeline from the Houston-based Kinder Morgan for C$4.5 billion. The purchase had been announced by the federal government in May 2018. At that time, the government said it would seek outside investors to complete the expansion. These investors would also be indemnified for any delays induced by provincial or municipal governments. In 2020, three insurance companies that had previously supported the project withdrew their support, including Zurich Insurance Group, the leading insurer. The company that is advancing the project said that it still had enough insurance coverage. By February 2020, the assessment for the completion of the project was estimated at $12.6 billion, an increase of the previous estimate of $7.4 billion. In a September 2020 interview with the Canadian Press, TMC's CEO Ian Anderson said that the expansion was on schedule despite the $5.2-billion increase in its cost. Anderson cited other challenges to construction including the COVID-19 pandemic, the slump in the demand for fuel, which contributes to the slump in the price of oil, and the protests by opponents to the expansion. Faced with the federal government's costly COVID-19 response, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, said this new funding for the pipeline was not part of the federal government's commitment. In March 2023, it was announced that the cost has again increased to $30.9 billion. As of April 2022, construction had reached the half-way mark. The company said in their November 2022 third-quarter report that expansion would be mechanically complete by the third quarter of 2023 and the commercial service would be operational in the fourth quarter of 2023. The line fill represents the final step before the pipeline goes into service. Debate The expansion project faced criticism, particularly from environmentalists and First Nations groups. To reach the terminus, tankers have to pass through a very narrow channel of shallow water from the open sea, still putting leaks at risk due to vehicle crashes. Environmentalists expressed concern about the heightened risk of an oil spill in the Burrard Inlet resulting from the expansion, which entailed the obstruction of 30% of the inlet and a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic, according to Stand.earth, formerly ForestEthics. Those who supported the expansion said that it would create jobs and that it had a lower risk of spilling oil than transporting oil by rail, which pipeline proponents said would otherwise have to be used. A 2014 study by Simon Fraser University claimed that Kinder Morgan overestimated the economic benefits of the pipeline expansion. From 2008 through 2018, Western Canadian Select (WCS), Canada's benchmark for heavy crude oil sold at an average discount of US$17 against the benchmark for light oil, West Texas Intermediate (WTI). This widened to a record US$50 in the fall of 2018 with the price of WCS hitting a record low of less than US$14 a barrel. Despite federal government approval, seven Federal Court challenges were filed by the municipalities of Vancouver and Burnaby, and the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Kwantlen, and Coldwater First Nations. In November 2017, Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr stated that the federal government had sent a letter in support of a dispute resolution process to the National Energy Board to expedite any future disputes over provincial or municipal permits impeding the expansion. BC Environmental Minister George Heyman accused the federal government of interfering with an independent review of the project, arguing that "it's both a highly unusual and a highly troubling intrusion on a province's right to enforce its own permits, its own regulations and the interests of its own citizens". On January 30, 2018, the B.C. government proposed a restriction on increases to the amount of diluted bitumen that could be imported into the province from Alberta, until the completion of studies on whether potential spillage could be mitigated. The province also announced an intent to consult with local communities and First Nations among others. Alberta premier Rachel Notley criticized the proposal as being a stalling tactic on Trans Mountain expansion, explaining that "the B.C. government has every right to consult on whatever it pleases with its citizens. It does not have the right to rewrite our constitution and assume powers for itself that it does not have." On February 6, 2018, Notley ordered the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission to cease future imports of British Columbia wine as a retaliatory sanction over these moves. The wine sanctions were lifted on February 22, 2018. On April 8, 2018, Kinder Morgan suspended "non-essential" activities relating to the pipeline, as the company did not want to "put shareholders at risk on the remaining project spend". The company stated that it would attempt to reach agreements on a funding plan with stakeholders by May 31. On April 16, the Alberta government introduced the Preserving Canada's Economic Prosperity Act, which would give the Minister of Energy power to regulate the export of crude oil, natural gas, or refined fuel from Alberta. The act could be used to effectively ban the export of Alberta gas to British Columbia. As such, B.C. Attorney General David Eby threatened to sue Alberta over the act, as he considered it unconstitutional, and stated that it could have a further impact on gasoline prices in the province. On May 29, 2018, the federal government announced its intent to acquire the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion. The government did not intend to remain the permanent owner of the pipeline, as it planned to seek outside investors to finance the twinning project. The government could not find a buyer before the consummation of the purchase, and it carried out the purchase via a crown corporation, and operated it in the meantime. Critics of the expansion argued that the purchase was a taxpayer-funded bailout of the project. B.C. Premier John Horgan stated that the sale would not affect the provincial government's ongoing efforts to block the pipeline expansion, stating that "rather than go to the court to determine jurisdictions, they're making financial decisions that affect taxpayers and they'll have to be accountable for that". Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said that the union was "absolutely shocked and appalled that Canada is willingly investing taxpayers' money in such a highly controversial fossil fuel expansion project". On August 30, 2018, Kinder Morgan Canada's shareholders voted to approve the sale of the pipeline to the federal government. However, the same day, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the government's approval of the expansion project, citing that it did not sufficiently fulfill its constitutional duties to consult local First Nations groups, and because it lacked an environmental assessment of increased tanker traffic on orcas in the Salish Sea off the BC coast. On August 31, Trudeau said the federal government remained committed to the pipeline expansion project in spite of this setback. In response to the approval being overturned, Premier Rachel Notley announced that Alberta would pull out of the national carbon price and called for an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Federal Court's August 30 decision. In November 2014, opponents of the pipeline expansion camped in Burnaby Mountain Park to block pipeline construction crews, and over 100 were arrested. The RCMP contained the protests on Burnaby Mountain. In July 2018 activists blocked an oil tanker from the Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge in Vancouver. In September 2021 a treetop camp in the Brunette River Conservation Area was dismantled by RCMP following a court injunction. The protest camp had been occupied by protesters since December 2020, and a leader of the protest claimed further actions would be planned. Secwépemc opposition According to Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, beginning in 2013 Secwépemc community members, primarily women, defended their traditional land (known as Secwepemcul’ecw) against the proposed expansion of the pipeline, asserting that the expansion was approved without sufficient consultation. The expansion crossed 518 km of Secwépemc territory. The land defenders (as they called themselves; some media refers to them as protesters and activists) were concerned about the damage to the land and water the pipeline passes through, in particular the disruption of salmon populations, violation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and violation of traditional Secwépemc law, founded by the Okanagan Shuswap Confederacy. Their claim was that the First Nation band governments only had jurisdiction through Canadian law on their reserves, whereas traditional Secwépemc leadership retained sovereignty over Secwepemcul’ecw. Beginning in July 2018, a Secwépemc protest camp was occupied just outside of Blue River, British Columbia, where the pipeline was to drill under the river. That camp, established by a group known as the Tiny House Warriors, was near a work camp. The establishment of the protest camp led Chief Rosanne Casimir of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (TteS), along with Chief Shelly Loring of Simpcw First Nation to issue a joint statement asking the Tiny House Warriors to stand down, claiming it was the Warriors violating Secwépemc law. In early September 2020, protester Loralie Dick chained herself to the TMX worksite in Kamloops before being arrested by the RCMP for violating a B.C. Supreme Court injunction from 2018 that barred land defenders from blocking work. On October 9, in response to TMX workers being seen surveying in preparation to drill under the river, the camp was moved directly in the way of the expansion. On October 10, the Secwépemc delivered a cease and desist notice to TMX for the second time. On October 11 it was moved again due to a chemical leak in the river. By October 15, the RCMP had begun arresting people connected to the camp. The Trudeau government restricted the Phase III hearings in terms of time and scope. The National Energy Board, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet agreed that the TMX was in the "national interest" as it would add "tens of billions of dollars" to government revenue as well as sustaining thousands of jobs. In a letter sent to both Trans Mountain and the lawyers representing the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, the NEB wrote that within the context of "substantial" and "significant" interest and participation on the part of Indigenous peoples and the general public, including the August 30, 2018, decision in Tsleil-Waututh Nation v. Canada, the NEB's regulatory oversight processes for the next phases of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project "lifecycle", which include "detailed route approvals", such as potential "routing and non-routing", would include a public comment period. Some Indigenous groups including the Kehewin Cree Nation, T'Sou-ke Nation, Frog Lake First Nation, Scia'new First Nation, Simpcw First Nation, Pellt'iq't First Nation, and Squiala First Nation formed the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group (WIPG) and have sanctioned the project for ownership stakes. Others, like the Coldwater Indian Band, have unsettled issues. The issues include disputes over the compensation from the institution of the first pipeline right-of-way in the 1950s, as well as future water supply risks which they would assume. In February 2020, a Federal Court of Appeal denied the request by environment and Indigenous groups to "consider whether there had been sufficient consultation". On March 5, 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada "declined to hear" a set of five legal challenges to the project's approval. These originated from First Nations groups, environmental organization, and teenage activists. On July 2, 2020, the Supreme Court rejected appeals by the Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, and Coldwater Indian Band and others challenging federal approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, "bringing an end to the years-long legal challenge". ==See also==