Written by GORDON HOEKSTRA
Citizen staff
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Wednesday, 06 August 2008 |
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FIRST NATIONSCARRIER SEKANI TRIBAL COUNCILDAVID LUGGIFIRST NATIONPRINCE GEORGE CHAMBER
The company says it has raised $100 million from Western Canadian producers and key Asian refiners to get the project through the regulatory process. The company says it intends to file a regulatory application in the first three months of 2009, and hopes to have the pipeline running by 2014.
"We're very much focused on moving forward on this project, and we feel in the months ahead will have a very strong case to take to communities on the benefits that will accrue across the North," Enbridge official Steve Greenaway said Wednesday.
"We will do that in a focused and thoughtful way. It's a big, big project with different issues and aspects" said Greenaway, the vice-president of government and public affairs, located in the company's newly-opened Vancouver office.
That's why it will take some time for community consultations, he said.
Some of the benefits from the project include 4,000 to 5,000 construction jobs, added municipal and provincial taxation and economic spinoffs in areas like catering and accommodation, said Greenaway. The company is revamping its estimates on permanent job creation, part of an effort to refresh information on the project, he said. Original estimates pegged permanent job creation at 75.
There are also opportunities for First Nations, including investing in the pipeline, funding from the company to undertake their own reviews of the project, employment and education, said Greenaway.
The pipeline would deliver oil from the Alberta oil sands via Edmonton to Kitimat (passing north of Prince George at Summit Lake) where it could be loaded on to super tankers for delivery to Asia or the U.S. West Coast. Tankers returning from Asia would deliver condensate, a gasoline-like substance used to dilute heavy oil, needed to increased oil sands production by pipeline.
The company has shelved the project in late 2006 just after it had filed a regulatory application, opting instead to focus on expanding pipeline capacity to the U.S.
Now, the company says that shippers may back the project because having alternate markets for their oil could raise prices.
As part of its renewed efforts on the project, Enbridge plans to open offices in Kitimat and Terrace. The company has also hired former provincial Liberal MLA Roger Harris as vice-president of community and aboriginal partnerships. Harris is the keynote speaker at a Prince George Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday. Enbridge intends to hold open houses in communities across northern B.C., but has set no dates.
While the company says it is already having discussions with First Nations, at least one aboriginal group has already rebuffed the company's efforts to sign a protocol agreement.
The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council says it won't sign a protocol agreement because they don't agree with the oil and gas transportation giant's conditions.
Enbridge wants the First Nation group -- which represents eight bands west of Prince George -- to agree to take part in a federal environmental assessment process which would be led by the National Energy Board, something which they won't agree to, said Carrier Sekani Tribal Council chief David Luggi.
Luggi has already sent a letter to Enbridge telling the company he has no mandate to have further discussions with the Calgary-based company.
Luggi said the tribal council and its bands do not accept the validity of the current regulatory and environmental processes managed by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. "It is not reasonable to require that our member First Nations agree to participate in such processes until those processes have been redesigned, following an adequate process of consultation, to respect our First Nations' interests and give us an adequate role in the process," Luggi said in his letter dated July 23.
Luggi noted that bands also generally have concerns about the possibility of an oil spill in the numerous streams and rivers the pipeline will cross.
Greenaway, who didn't know any details of the issue, said it is the company's intent to resolve First Nation's concerns.
The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council has been demanding a more prominent role in environmental assessments of major industrial projects like pipelines and mines in their traditional territories, which encompass a vast area in B.C.'s Northern Interior stretching west of Prince George to the Babine Lake area.
In 2006, First Nations, which included the tribal council, had requested $2.4 million from the federal government to spearhead their own review of Enbridge's proposed pipeline. Later that year, the tribal council filed a federal court challenge of the federal government's decision to send Enbridge's proposed pipeline to a review panel. The tribal council wanted the court to overturn the creation of the panel because they said they were not consulted.
The panel review didn't start after Enbridge shelved the project.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 06 August 2008 )
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