In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline carrying diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands ruptured and spilled more than three million litres into the Kalamazoo River. More than two years after that spill sections of the water way are still closed and oil still contaminates the river sediment and wetlands.

Enbridge says they learned a lot from that experience and so did we: that Enbridge staff operating the pipeline were not properly trained; that Enbridge did not know how to contain a spill in fast water; that known cracks in the pipeline were not repaired; that the bitumen sunk and now coats a 16 hectare swath of the river bottom; that an oily sheen continues to migrate to the river’s surface; that 320 people were made sick by the oil spill.

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently stated the oil will never be completely removed from the river.

For the right price, Christy Clark will approve Enbridge’s double pipeline across 1,200 km of rugged and sometimes unstable landscapes in northern BC, if Stephen Harper has not already guaranteed the pipeline by way of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.

Laurie Friskie

Prince George