Environmentalists are planning an anti-oil protest for Aug. 27 at the site of Burnaby's infamous 2007 pipeline rupture.
"Hopefully, this protest can give people in Burnaby a little bit more of a voice," said Wilderness Committee spokesperson Ben West.
In July 2007, a city-hired contractor broke Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline while digging along Inlet Drive. A 20metre geyser of oil sprayed for 25 minutes, coating nearby homes in crude oil. Residents were evacuated, and the cleanup took months.
The Wilderness Committee and the Council of Canadians are the main groups behind the protest, set to take place at the site of the pipeline rupture.
West said the event was organized to coincide with an upcoming Washington D.C. demonstration against Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline that would route oil from the Alberta tar sands to Texas. West has concerns about a number of issues, including tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet, the proposed Enbridge pipeline and Kinder Morgan's plan to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, which runs oil from Alberta to Burnaby.
"All these companies want to corner the market to supplying oil to Asia and the West Coast," West said.
West would rather see more public transport and designs for walkable cities to lighten the demand on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"We are home to one of the biggest sources of oil left on the planet, and if we are going to do anything about climate change, we can't continue to expand that resource," he said. "If we do allow these expan-sions of the tar sands and the pipeline infrastructure, we know the problems we have will be very large."
Kinder Morgan's 1,150kilometre Trans Mountain pipeline runs from Edmonton to Burnaby and is twinned in some areas.
To increase shipping capacity and meet rising demand, the company would have to twin more sections of the existing line.
The Trans Mountain pipeline's maximum capacity is now at 300,000 barrels a day, but the most it could handle if fully expanded is up to 700,000 barrels.
No expansion plans have been approved yet, according to Kinder Morgan spokesperson Lexa Hobenshield.
"We have made no regulatory application at this point, and prior to any application there would be a comprehensive consultation process completed as one of the steps towards an application - assuming market support," said Hobenshield. "Regarding the protest, we will be monitoring the event to ensure the safety of the public and our facilities."
Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are reviewing TransCanada's $7-billion proposal for the KeyStone XL pipeline and should have a response by the end of this year.
