As the debate over Canada's energy future rages on, Greenpeace squares off with the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association over the safety of our energy pipelines.
Pipeline safety is paramount to our industry. Why? Well, it is rather simple: These energy highways are a critical part of our energy infrastructure, and millions of customers and businesses have come to expect a safe and reliable service. Our industry, like any other business activity, carries risks we need to manage carefully as we work toward zero incidents.
Just pick up a newspaper and you’ll see that oil and gas pipelines are anything but safe for people and the planet. After a year of almost weekly ruptures and spills, it’s increasingly hard to believe that the pipeline industry places a premium on safety. There’s a lot of big talk, but the reality of near-constant “accidents” speaks volumes – millions of litres, in fact.
It is correct to point out that a number of high-profile pipeline incidents have occurred in the last year that would lead people to believe that our pipeline infrastructure is not safe. However, the actual safety record of the Canadian pipeline industry vis-a-vis that of comparable jurisdictions (i.e. the U.S. and Europe) is excellent, and is, in fact, world class. The Canadian transmission pipeline companies operate approximately 100,000 kilometres of pipelines in North America. These companies move 1.2 billion barrels of crude and refined products and 5.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas each year. The average annual volume released from liquids pipelines was just two litres for every million litres transported 99.9998 per cent of the product was transported safely.
During the period between 2002 and 2009, the industry was able to reduce the number of major incidents on federally regulated pipelines by 55 per cent. As mentioned earlier, it is not a perfect record, but we continue to work at it by adopting new technologies and sharing best practices. The economic, environmental, and potential social costs of a rupture or spill is something the industry is very concerned about – hence the industry's commitment to working toward zero incidents. While I understand the concerns raised by Ms. Wilson, we always need to provide some context to issues raised so that we can move the dialogue forward in a constructive manner.
As I was writing my reply to Mr. Reicher, a news alert appeared in my inbox: Yet another pipeline had burst in Alberta. This time, the spill, at 1,300 barrels, was relatively minor (by industry standards) and certainly nothing close to the 28,000-barrel spill in northern Alberta this spring. That spill - the second biggest in the province's history - struck the community of Peace River with a host of health impacts, such as difficulty breathing, dizziness, a contaminated water supply, and school closures due to illness. Only 49 per cent of the spill has been cleaned up, and the surrounding forest and muskeg that soaked up the brunt of the unfortunate "accident" have not recovered. These are just two of the 100 separate incidents that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada has logged on federally regulated Canadian oil and gas pipelines over the past two years.
Expanding North America's network of aging pipelines carries risks beyond local impacts. On a global scale, this reckless path will only prolong our addiction to dirty and dwindling fossil fuels. Rather than building more conduits to exacerbate this insane pursuit of dirty energy, we need to transition toward the clean, green, renewable-energy economy of the future: one that creates millions of jobs, and pulls us back from the brink of climate chaos. Mr. Reicher and his industry don't like to hear that, and they like admitting it even less. But that doesn't make it any less true.
The most recent Pembina pipeline incident is a good example of why we believe Canada's pipeline infrastructure is safe and reliable because it operates in a highly regulated environment.
Within a few hours of the incident, Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) was on site with its inspectors to determine the extent of the incident and ensure that the measures taken by the pipeline operator met regulatory requirements and expectations. Within 24 hours of the incident, the ERCB produced a press release, which informed the public, including Ms. Wilson, of the spill. These two actions alone demonstrate transparency, strong regulatory oversight of our industry, and a commitment to protecting the public interest by ensuring that a private operator uses remediation measures that minimize negative environmental and social impacts.
On the broader issue of our reliance on fossil fuel and the need to transition toward a cleaner, greener, renewable-energy economy, I will not dispute the need to move toward a greener economy. In fact, the companies we represent are always investing in new technologies to reduce the environmental impacts of their pipeline operations. Many of them are also investing in renewable-energy projects across Canada.
But that discussion is a different one than the original topic of the debate: Are Canadian pipelines safe?
Canadian pipeline operators, particularly those in Alberta, are not as well-regulated as Mr. Reicher would have you believe. That inspectors show up quickly, sometimes, to confirm a spill happened is cold comfort to a community dealing with the spill, and colder comfort still to the forests, species, and water bodies that are almost always the worst affected.
Take for instance the Enbridge spill in Michigan last July: one of the largest spills in the history of the U.S. Midwest, by a "highly regulated" Canadian company, no less. A year later, less than 10 per cent of the more than three million litres (or 18,869 barrels) that leaked has been collected. That leaves more than 2.9 million litres - most of it now settled on the river bottom - still polluting the waterways, killing off flora and fauna, and burdening the community with toxic waste. Regulators say the clean-up could take years.
Mr. Reicher and I can support our respective positions with statistics, and argue semantics until the cows come home (assuming their pastures aren't still coated in oil). But at the end of the day, until we switch to renewables to get off oil and move away from debating where and how we transport it, communities, animals, and delicate ecosystems remain at risk. Wherever oil and gas pipelines operate, spills and leaks will inevitably happen.
Jennifer Holmgren
CEO, LanzaTech.
Yasheng Huang
International Program Professor, Chinese Economy and Business; Professor, Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management.
Tony Burman
Former managing director; current head of strategy for the Americas, Al Jazeera English.
Richard Zeckhauser
Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Kennedy School, Harvard University.
Karen Mazurkewich
Journalist; Co-director of a report on intellectual property and innovation for the CIC.
Michael Ignatieff
Senior Resident of Massey College, University of Toronto;Former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada;
Linda Martín Alcoff
Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York.
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development; Author, The Price of Civilization
Business,Environment,Oil,Oil Sands,Energy,Renewable Energy,energy1