Hazardous Pipelines

President Barack Obama put an end to the Keystone Pipeline Project, a 7-billion-dollar, 2,500-km supply network linking Alberta and Texas. The president’s decision may not come as a big surprise as 2012 is an election year. Obama probably wants to avoid losing votes in the several states that the pipeline would cross. This project has become the subject of an intense protest by both environmental groups and citizens, who fear that possible spills would pollute groundwater.

However, the refusal this week, which did not please the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, also included an invitation to the developer, TransCanada Pipelines, to submit an alternative route at a later date, so the project is still possible in the future.

Just before this story, a project called the Northern Gateway taking place entirely on Canadian soil also made headlines. The Northern Gateway, which would link Alberta and the marine terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia, aims to build a 1,177-km natural gas and crude oil transportation network, at a cost of $3.5 billion.

The government fears that this project may be interrupted by radical environmental groups who could “hijack [the] regulatory system to achieve their [own] radical ideological agenda,” in the form of juridic hearings concerning the environmental impacts. At least that’s the opinion held by the Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, referring to opponents of the project.

(Not surprisingly, the Conservatives represented by Mr. Oliver have nothing to say against foreign multinationals who are as equally hated as these radical environmentalists.)

The minister’s speech has betrayed the feelings of the Conservative government against those who oppose them. This attitude has spread like wildfire since it concerns the oil sands industry, which Prime Minister Harper has defended vigorously in all forums. This industry, remember, is largely based in Alberta, where the Conservatives have broad electoral support.

The Harper government wants to move forward with this supply project, with the view to develop new export markets for their oil. This is the only good element of this idea. Over 99 percent of our oil is exported to the United States and, commercially speaking, it is not wise to become dependent on a single buyer. But building a pipeline is risky business, as it transports highly flammable and polluting substances. Accidents, despite what the sponsor Enbridge says, are numerous. In addition, the pipeline must cross geographic areas deemed treacherous. Furthermore, all paths lead to a region of the Pacific coast where the sea traffic of oil tankers has been suspended since 1972…

The interests of the conservatives in favor of pipelines that will transport oil sands to refining and distribution markets are obvious: Once they are in place, it will be much more difficult to block the industry’s controversial environmental projects. Supporters would say, “The pipeline is there, so we might as well operate at full capacity, right?”

A need for Canada to wean itself off a commercial dependence on U.S. markets would be the only reason to proceed with the venture of two pipelines that would connect Alberta to the Texas and Asian markets.

But for now, the path to realizing these adventures is littered with many obstacles; if they were built under current conditions, the containment of environmental disasters would cost much more than the billions of dollars export markets promise us. The studies must continue to achieve better proposals that will not discount the possibility of an accident, of course, but that will reduce them, in an effort not to leave TransCanada Pipelines and Enbridge high and dry.