Protesters with Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan Expansion (BROKE) staged a “die-in” outside the Trans Mountain terminal gates on Burnaby mountain Wednesday morning, dramatizing the worst-case-scenario in case of a disaster at the tank farm.
Some 50 people participated in a demonstration, with some lying in front of the gates ‘dying’ from an explosion, others singing, chanting, holding banners, and sitting in a circle in front of the gates. Some were arrested.
Twenty-five demonstrators took their cue after hearing a siren, with some yelling “Fire!” and “Evacuate! Evacuate!” The group lay on the ground holding white crosses and signs listing the reasons they were ‘killed,’ including hydrogen sulfide, fire, smoke and benzene. Others, dressed in hazmat suits, drew chalk outlines around their bodies, and carried them away on stretchers.
One man wearing a toy firefighter hat sat with his feet and hands bound, his mouth gagged. He played the role of Burnaby’s Deputy Fire Chief Chris Bowcock, meant to demonstrate that his “hands were tied” in stopping the disaster. Bowcock published a report in 2015 outlining the risks to the neighbourhood should the pipeline expansion go through. He expressed concern about wildfire spreading on the mountain close to homes. People at Simon Fraser University (SFU) would be trapped there as the forest burned, he said.
BROKE member Ann Jarrell participated in the die-in. As someone who lives on Burnaby mountain, she said she’s concerned about what could happen to her if there were an explosion and she couldn’t escape.
“The tank farm is already dangerous. If there is a fire or explosion or something here, we may not be able to get off the mountain because we only have two roads that go up to the mountain,” she told the NOW. “The expansion of the tank farm means the tanks will be closer to those roads … parents won’t be able to get back to their families; students won’t be able to get off the mountain, neither will anyone else be able to evacuate.
“I hope the Canadian government doesn’t want the possibility of people dying because of this project.”
Karl Perrin, an organizer with BROKE said he hopes today’s demonstration will “wake people up” to the risks those living near the tank farm will face.
“Some people know it, and they assume that if their neighbours are not panicking, then they shouldn’t panic. Some people are aware of it, but they don’t believe the risk is high enough to bother with, and others don’t know about it or knew about it and forgot,” he said. “So we are calling the alarm, and we are telling those residents that, yes, there is significant danger to the expansion.”
With files from Jennifer Moreau.
