Fines imposed on three companies involved in Burnaby's infamous 2007 oil pipeline rupture are too light, according to city councillor Dan Johnston.
"I think (the fines) are certainly low, to be honest, when you consider the impact that spill had on the neighbourhood and the environment," said Johnston, who also heads the city's environment committee. "I think they seem to be extremely light."
On Monday, Oct. 3, three companies - Trans Mountain, B. Cusano Contracting, and R.F. Binnie and Associates - pleaded guilty to one count under the Environmental Management Act. The companies have been fined $1,000 each and have agreed to pay $149,000 each to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. Trans Mountain will put $100,000 into an education fund.
Johnston said the trust fund payments are a good start.
"(But) it tells me we need to be more vigilant about the expansion of the Trans Mountain facility," he added.
Trans Mountain owns the 1,150-kilometre pipeline that runs oil from Alberta to Burnaby, but Kinder Morgan, the operator, is mulling an expansion plan that could increase maximum capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 700,000.
Johnston said a resolution was passed at the Union of B.C. Municipalities calling for the National Energy Board to hold more public hearings on the expansion proposal.
"We do need a full and open public process. The National Energy Board has made an interim decision that they don't need to have additional hearings," Johnston said. "We brought an emergency resolution to the UBCM that that not be the case, that they listen to the public and take their concerns into consideration."
On July 24, 2007, Cusano Contracting a city-hired contractor broke the Trans Mountain pipeline while digging along Inlet Drive. A 20-metre geyser of oil sprayed for 25 minutes, coating nearby homes in crude oil. Residents were evacuated, and the cleanup took months.
Trans Mountain was supposed to let the city and the contractor know where the pipeline was, and there should have been a meeting prior to construction, which never happened. Cusano was given two sets of drawings with conflicting locations for the pipeline, which was about a metre off of what was indicated on the project drawings. The rupture released 224,000 litres of crude, which coated nearby homes and seeped into the Burrard Inlet. The cleanup cost roughly $15 million, not including what was spent on the affected homes.
Inlet Drive resident Fred Crouch also said the fines were low.
"I thought it was a little light really," he said. "The damage they actually did far exceeds that by quite a lot."
Crouch's home was lightly speckled in black crude oil, and his insurance company covered the damage and cleanup. Other residents, who got payouts for damage to their homes, have been sworn to secrecy, he added.
