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Op-Ed: Eagle Spirit pipeline the better option

Mike Priaro from Calgary on the Great Bear Rainforest environmental scam
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Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project’s Westeridge loading dock is seen in Burnaby, B.C., on November 25, 2016. The B.C. government is creating more uncertainty around Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain expansion project with a proposal to restrict any increase in diluted bitumen shipments until it conducts more spill response studies. Provincial Environment Minister George Heyman says there needs to be more confidence in how well oil transporters are prepared to respond and fully mitigate the effects of a potential spill. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

The proposed U.S.-owned Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion cannot load VLCC tankers, or anything close in size, because of shallow water under Vancouver’s Second Narrows bridge.

As a result, its primary market will be Puget Sound and California refineries—Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau don’t mention that do they?

No Presidential Permit is required to expand the 180,000 bbls/day capacity of the existing Trans Mountain line that crosses the border at Sumas B.C. to feed U.S. Puget Sound refineries via Kinder Morgan’s Puget Sound system.

To my knowledge, Notley and Trudeau have never publicly acknowledged or supported a far better option to west coast tide water—Eagle Spirit’s proposal for an all-Canadian pipeline/energy corridor to the Prince Rupert area. Why is that?

READ MORE: GoFundMe launched to fight oil-tanker moratorium

I believe it’s because of a back-room deal between Rachel Notley and Justin “…the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline…” Trudeau to preserve the Great Bear Rainforest—an environmental crock, if ever there was one, scammed up in a San Francisco restaurant by Tzeporah Berman and her Greenpeace/eco-warrior cabal—in return for Trudeau’s support of the Trans Mountain expansion.

Of course, Alberta’s “initiative” on the carbon tax was also a factor as it relieved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the politically-damaging imposition of a federal carbon tax on Alberta. Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley and Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—quite the back-room couple aren’t they?

Speaking of back-room deals, Premier Rachel Notley did not inform, or seek prior discussion or approval from Albertans, regarding her committing of 50,000 bbls/d of Albertans’, not hers, oil royalty volumes to the Keystone XL pipeline.

So, ramming a pipeline through B.C.’s densely populated Lower Mainland, and increasing the number of dilbit tankers through the crowded Salish Sea, against the wishes of the B.C. government, the cities of Vancouver, Victoria, Burnaby, and others, First Nations, and half the people of B.C. is OK?

And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval of the Great Bear Rainforest, and his Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker moratorium Act, seeking to ban loading oil tankers off B.C’s North Coast, over the objections of First Nations who were not properly consulted for either intrusion into their traditional lands and waters, is also OK?

All for an environmental scam and self-serving Notley-Trudeau back-room deals.

READ MORE: Liberals introduce oil-tanker ban for north coast and Haida Gwaii

Mike Priaro, P.Eng.

Calgary, AB