An environmental disaster is waiting to happen in
Hamilton: the rupture of Enbridge’s Hamilton-to-Sarnia
pipeline, pouring diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands
into the Beverley Swamp or one of the many creeks and rivers
along the way that flow into lakes Ontario and Erie. The
pipeline hub is at Westover in Flamborough.
Enbridge applied last month to the National Energy Board
(NEB) to reverse the flow of its 37-year-old Pipeline 9
through Hamilton and ship diluted bitumen from west to east,
rather than crude oil from east to west. Pipeline 9 uses the
same type of steel pipe that ruptured last year in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, causing a $750-million spill that’s still
not fully cleaned up. It took Enbridge 17 hours even to turn
off the flow of that pipeline after the rupture.
Crude oil isn’t corrosive but diluted bitumen is. Crude
oil requires less pressure to move through a pipeline than
diluted bitumen. And diluted bitumen, when bursting from a
break in an outdated pipe that is under greater pressure
than it was built for, does not float on water. Rather, it
sinks to the bottom where it’s hard to remove, and releases
toxic solvents into the atmosphere that could cause
respiratory problems and even deaths among residents, first
responders, livestock, and wildlife nearby. Six hundred
people became ill during the Kalamazoo spill. Two later
died.
Enbridge Pipeline 10 from Hamilton to Buffalo spilled
once in Binbrook in 2001 and, according to Binbrook resident
John McGreal, it took 12 hours for the company to shut off
that 29-year-old pipe.
On Oct. 17, 2012, Enbridge was supposed to address Hamilton council
regarding its proposal. For the third time, it failed to
show up. Instead, Enbridge representatives privately lobbied
councillors but apparently failed to tell them diluted
bitumen was to be shipped. Hamilton, incidentally, does not
have a compulsory lobbyist registry.
In Enbridge’s place, a number of citizen delegates
addressed council. I argued that, because the Stephen Harper
government recklessly cancelled the environmental assessment
of the Enbridge proposal (along with 3,000 others in its
omnibus budget bill), council should direct its legal staff
to initiate a legal challenge forcing the project to undergo
one. Until then, I recommended the city amend its building
code to idle oil pipelines over 30 years of age within city
limits. At the very minimum, I urged that Hamilton’s idle
blast furnaces should be churning out steel for a brand new
pipeline.
Harper, I pointed out, is the voice of the oil industry
in Canada. Line 9 through Hamilton represents the last hope
of the oilsands consortium to ship out its environmentally
unfriendly product to world markets. The proposed Keystone
pipeline for oilsands bitumen through the United States for
refinement in Texas has been nixed for now by Barack Obama.
The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to transfer bitumen
to the West Coast for shipment to Asian markets by
supertanker (shades of the Exxon Valdiz) has been stopped by
British Columbia. So, Enbridge wants to ship diluted bitumen
through Hamilton to be refined in Maine.
I also explained why the oilsands development should be
shut down. That mining operation is environmentally
unsustainable and represents an obsolete 1950s paradigm of
the use of fossil fuels to power a completely outdated
system of private transportation using cars and trucks. It
is the world’s largest single polluter producing CO2, a
greenhouse gas that promotes climate change.
Other presenters called for council to demand a $1
billion performance bond from Enbridge, to be apprised of
the results of 84 recent “integrity digs” on pipelines near
Hamilton, to intervene in Enbridge’s NEB application, to
approach other municipalities for joint action, and to force
Enbridge to appear at public informational meetings, among
other initiatives. On Oct. 17, with Brian McHattie in the
chair, city councillors listened attentively and asked many
questions of presenters and city staff. Hopefully, council
will act promptly on these suggestions.
Hamiltonians wanting to learn more about this issue would
be well advised to hear Andrew Nikiforuk deliver the annual
Spirit of Red Hill Lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 28, at 7:30
p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 170 Dundurn South. The
topic of this award-winning journalist will be Bitumen,
Pipelines and the Petro-State. Admission is free.
Ken Stone is a member of Environment Hamilton and Hamilton 350 Committee.
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