Would you want this pipeline in your neighbourhood?

A red-winged blackbird perches on an Enbridge Line 9 oil pipeline sign in a Centennial Park wetland, Toronto.

 

This 639 km pipeline, now owned by Enbridge Pipelines Inc., has passed through southern Ontario, including highly populated Toronto and Mississauga neighborhoods and parkland, since 1976. Originally built to transport light crude oil from Sarnia to Montreal, it was reversed in the late 1990s to pump imported crude westward.

 

In 2014, Enbridge applied to Canada's National Energy Board to switch the direction of the aging pipeline back, in order to feed Alberta heavy, tar/oil sands crude to eastern refineries. In March 2014, the NEB granted Enbridge approval - despite opponents who argued that the increased output of the thicker and highly toxic bitumen, which the pipeline was not built to carry, puts communities at risk, threatens water supplies and endangers ecologically sensitive areas.

 

How likely is it that a spill will occur?

 

Using data from Enbridge’s own reports, the Polaris Institute calculated that 804 spills occurred on Enbridge pipelines between 1999 and 2010, releasing approximately 161,475 barrels of crude oil into the environment.

 

And that over the last 20 years, there was an average of 250 pipeline incidents a year, spilling more than 2.5 million barrels of hazardous liquids - of which only half was recovered in cleanup efforts - causing over $6.3 billion in property damages.

 

What could happen if a spill happens?

 

In 2010, Enbridge's Line 6B pipeline ruptured in Michigan, releasing 843,444 gallons of Alberta crude oil into the Talmadge Creek and Kalamazoo River.

 

The largest inland oil pipeline spill in U.S. history, it cost over $767M (U.S.) to clean up, 148 homes evacuated after the spill still remain vacant and the EPA estimates as much as 180,000 gallons of oil, which contains toxic arsenic and lead, still lie on the river bottom.

 

Afterwards, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board warned that spills will continue until the pipeline industry pursues safety “with the same vigour as they pursue profits.”

 

Regardless of one's views on the continued use of fossil fuels, or the economic benefits of the oil industry, how would you like to have this pipeline running through your back yard?

 

Taken on May 24, 2015

 

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