Oil, Pipelines, and First Nations: When Ecological and Economic Interests Collide

Image obtained via Caelie_Frampton on Flickr Creative Commons

What Happens when there is a Spill

In the CTV video report cited above, members of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation show rocks along the shore of North Vancouver covered in “blobs of tar,” which they say are the regularly found remnants of an oil spill in the 1950s. They also state that a few weeks prior to that interview, a “mystery spill” had washed up on their shore yet again.

Ernie George, member of the Tsleil-Waututh, exclaims with sadness that “the inlet is in peril and…dying.” Carleen Thomas, also a member, remarked that “the risk is too great.”

Indeed, Weyler told me that the grim lessons drawn from the 20,000 barrels of bitumen spilled into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan by an Enbridge Pipeline in July 2010, are that “bitumen, diluted with condensed gas and/or volatile solvents such as naphtha, separates in the water. The volatile gases – toluene and the carcinogen benzene – are released into the air [and are] causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, coughing, and fatigue among the local population. Other animals that breathe the air likely experience similar symptoms. In the Michigan experience, the toxic fumes remained for weeks, and could be smelled up to 50 kilometres away. Two years after the Michigan spill, 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River remain close to fishing, swimming, or even wading in the water.”

He continued: “Meanwhile, the heavy bitumen sinks. Clean-up crews in a bitumen spill have to battle toxic fumes as well as bitumen sinking below their skimmers. In a marine environment, the heavy bitumen sinks, moves with wind and tides, covers the marine bottom-life, mixes with the sediments, impacts the shellfish, and kills ocean plants, fish, and marine mammals.

“Bitumen crude oil also contains sulphur, paraffin, asphaltic, benzene, and other compounds that have toxic effects on plants and animals. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (“PAHs”) in bitumen dissolve in the water. These toxins contaminate wetlands or marine ecosystems and leach into the substrate. In the marine ecosystem, these toxins disrupt the food chain at its base with the loss of photoplankton and marine biofilm that forms on mudflats – the bacteria, diatoms, and mucopolysaccharides that provide a high-energy food source for shorebirds.”

Many of us may still remember the Exxon Valdez Spill that poured over 250,000 barrels into the coast of Alaska. Empirical scientific evidence has time and time again proven that the ecology and marine life that were affected by the spill still have not recovered and show no signs of doing so in the near future. Similar continuing devastation has been the result of the more recent BP underwater spill.

This type of environmental contamination has dire effects, many of which the people from the Chipewyan First Nation, downstream from the Alberta Tar Sands, have deeply felt, according to Weyler.

“[They’ve] suffered cancer increase, new or unusual cancers, lung problems, and other health impacts,” he told me.

Backed by photographs and videos of fish caught downstream from the Tar Sands plagued with “deformities, tumours, infections and signs of disease,” Weyler tells me that the Chipewyan people, elders, health experts, industry and independent studies – as well as Government studies – have all agreed on the overwhelming evidence that nearby oil sands activity has led to “environmental toxicity…that far exceeds safe and acceptable levels.”

The Chipewyan people have also complained that the tar sands development disturbs traditional hunting, fishing, and public gatherings.

[pullquote]It…appears that Kinder Morgan intended to proceed without consultation with…the Indigenous Nations…or with the citizens of Vancouver or their political representatives[/pullquote]Lack of Consultation

To add insult to injury, the opposition is also protesting what they consider lack of transparency in the company’s undertakings.

Echoing something that How To Boil a Frog producer/writer Jon Cooksey told me a few months back, Weyler stated that since 2005, when Terasen Gas was bought, until this year, no consultations with the Tsleil-Waututh had taken place before any of the projects or expansions had occurred. These included “buying and flipping” the company, as Weyler and Cooksey put it, retaining the pipelines, converting them to ship tar sands bitumen instead of gas, shipping crude oil through the Burrard Inlet on crude oil tankers and finally the 2008 Anchor Loop Project.

I asked Hobeshield if she could comment on these allegations, to which she responded:

“Kinder Morgan Canada views the Crown’s obligation for Aboriginal consultation as an opportunity to demonstrate the recognition and respect for the constitutionally-protected rights held by Aboriginal peoples. The Company is pleased to support a meaningful consultation process.

“That being said, we have regular and open communications with First Nation communities that may be affected by our operational activities. We have been seeking the opportunity to meet with Tsleil-Waututh for some time now. While they have advised they are not ready to meet with us yet, we stand ready to provide information to them and to meet with them at any time.”

However, Weyler stated, “the problem that Kinder Morgan now has with the Tsleil-Waututh is a result of failure to properly consult with the indigenous nation prior to their conversion of the pipeline, expansion of capacity, and introduction of crude oil tankers into Burrard Inlet, the traditional territory of the Tsleil-Waututh.

“It…appears that Kinder Morgan intended to proceed without consultation with…the Indigenous Nations…or with the citizens of Vancouver or their political representatives,” he added. But now that citizens as well as aboriginal communities have risen in solidarity against the project, “[the company has] made an attempt to meet with the Tsleil-Waututh…almost certainly – based on past experience – to offer [them] a bribe to accept the pipelines and tankers on their traditional territories.”

Weyler also stated that although there “has been some dialogue between some First Nations or individual First Nations members and oil and pipeline companies, nothing that could be called adequate consultations” has taken place.

“In Canada,” he explained, “the First Nations claim that Enbridge and Kinder Morgan have failed to provide a process to secure ‘free, prior, and informed consent’ for industrial development on their traditional territories as guaranteed by Canadian law and the United Nations’ Declaration of Indigenous People, to which Canada has signed.

“It is too late for ‘prior’ consent in the case of Kinder Morgan,” he said, “since the pipeline has been delivering tar sands bitumen to ships in Burrard Inlet since 2007. The Coastal First Nations claim that they have not been properly consulted on the plan to ship crude oil along the B.C. coast.

“It appears that Kinder Morgan now claims…that they have been ‘seeking the opportunity’ to meet with the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish,” he added. “But this is now seven years too late.”

As of this year, according to the CTV video report, president of Kinder Morgan has already made presentations to investors that would definitely involve the widening of the channel by dredging the Burrard Inlet in order to ship the increased amounts of crude oil. Though Kinder Morgan hasn’t officially applied to be allowed to dredge, “the Port is testing samples of sediment at Second Narrows Channel to prepare for possible dredging,” stated the report.

Ben West, with the Wilderness Committee, told the reporter that “a lot of toxins and heavy metals, well above acceptable limits” will result from the dredging.

Weyler also mentioned that although the National Energy Board has led some supposedly public hearings in B.C., these have been biased “toward presumed acceptance of the projects and inadequate to gain full public response.” In other instances, they have bypassed communities altogether, such as Vancouver.

In that city, however, a one-day hearing with testimony from industry, public, and first Nations were held, he told me.

“The testimony focused primarily on marine safety, the effects of crude oil in the marine environment, frequency of oil spills and so forth. The Vancouver City Council has concluded that the risks are not worth the minor port revenues, and have passed a resolution insisting that the pipeline, oil companies and shipping companies indemnify the City for potential oil spill costs, which would come to several tens of billions of dollars.” Derek Corrigan, mayor of Burnaby, has also come out against the pipeline.