The National Energy Board has decided not to allow a group of Burnaby residents to participate in an upcoming hearing related to Kinder Morgan's pipeline expansion.
The group includes a dozen residents and a housing co-op with 88 units, all in Burnaby's Forest Grove area, where the pipeline runs along the south of Burnaby Mountain.
Glen Porter, a resident of the Pine Ridge Housing Co-op, said the National Energy Board decision was disappointing.
"We certainly think our concerns are valid, and the National Energy Board has decided not to hear us, at least not at this stage," Porter said. "But we're not going away."
Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline runs oil from Alberta to Burnaby and can transport a maximum of 300,000 barrels of oil per day. The company wants to twin the pipeline, more than doubling its capacity, but needs National Energy Board approval first. But the upcoming hearing the residents wanted to join was not about the pipeline expansion or route of the twin line; it's a commercial tolling application to seek approval from the board on what methodology the company can use to charge its customers.
The National Energy Board allowed several oil and gas companies to have intervenor status in the hearing but excluded the Forest Grove residents, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (the pipeline and Westridge Marine Terminal are in their traditional territory), and BROKE, another residents' group that is opposed to the expansion. In a five-page document online, the board outlined its reasons for rejecting the applicants.
"As for the other intervention requests, the board is of the view that they have not sufficiently justified their interest in the issues to be tried in this case. The issues to be decided in this case relate only and exclusively to the commercial aspects of a potential future expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline system, that include the toll methodology, the terms and conditions for oil transportation service, the allocation of capacity on the system, the appropriateness of the open season and specific filing requirement exemptions related to financial regulation."
According to Porter, the residents wanted to ensure that the tolling application fully accounted for the costs of compensation to area residents in the event of a pipeline leak or rupture. Kinder Morgan has already experienced an oil spill in 2007, when city-hired workers broke the pipeline, releasing 224,000 litres of oil in North Burnaby. Some local residents were compensated for damage to their property.
In the event of a catastrophe, those costs could be quite large, Porter said.
"Our concern was to make sure the costs of insurance and so on were built into the tolls that the company would charge, and it seems like we are not able to make that point," he added.
Ecojustice, an environmental group of activist lawyers, was representing the residents.
"We're really disappointed," said Karen Campbell, a lawyer with Ecojustice. "Kinder Morgan is saying they are doing public consultation ... and they really want a dialogue, but their lawyers sent two letters to the National Energy Board saying we shouldn't speak."
Burnaby MPs Peter Julian and Kennedy Stewart were also rejected from the hearing.
"I was quite surprised because the National Energy Board included me in the Chevron hearings that are coming up in January, and this is a very related matter," Stewart said. "They said my
concerns weren't relevant." Brianne Rohovie, a communications officer with the National Energy Board, said the commercial tolling application was to seek board approval of a proposed toll methodology, which has to do with how the tolls that will be charged to shippers are calculated.
"Before approving a toll methodology, the board must satisfy itself that the toll methodology will produce tolls that are just and reasonable, and that they are not unjustly discriminatory," she said.
Kinder Morgan has yet to apply for permission to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline system, but when the company does, the board will hold a public hearing.
"Those who will be directly affected by this proposed expansion project will have the opportunity to participate in the public hearing. In addition, the board's participant funding program will be available for the hearing, which will assist intervenors with their participation expenses," she said.
