Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline simply poses too great a risk to the environment for the project to go ahead, environmental groups argued in releasing a report Tuesday outlining their concerns.
The diluted bitumen Enbridge proposes to carry 1,177 kilometres from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat "may weaken pipelines at a faster rate than lighter, conventional oil," said Anthony Swift of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in a teleconference with media.
Swift cited high temperatures and pressures and some of bitumen's corrosive properties as reasons for that concern.
The concentration of toxins found in bitumen make those types of spills especially hazardous to people exposed to the liquid and their cleanup is more challenging because heavy bitumen can sink in water, Swift continued.
The pipeline will run through remote areas of Northern B.C. making leak detection difficult, said Swift.
"Even a small leak can be a problem," Swift said.
The pipeline also threatens B.C.'s salmon fishery, said Nathan Lemphers of the Pembina Institute, as it will cross over 785 streams and rivers, most notably the upper tributaries of the Skeena and Upper Fraser watersheds, the Great Bear Rainforest and Douglas Channel.
The commercial salmon fishery generates $250 million a year and the recreational fishery a further $550 million, Lemphers said, and if cared for properly can continue in perpetuity while the pipeline's benefit would last 30 to 40 years.
The pipeline's mountainous western route exposes it to landslides, Lemphers also said.
And Katie Terhune of Living Oceans Society warned 220 supertankers a year will ply the waters of Douglas Channel if the pipeline is built, each carrying up to two million barrels of crude, eight times more than was on the Exxon Valdez when it struck a reef off the Alaskan coast in 1989.
"One mistake in navigation and we could have a catastrophe in one of the most beautiful places on earth," Terhune said.
Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said the report appears to be a compilation of criticisms such groups have raised over the last couple years and offers nothing new.
"A lot of the stuff in the report ignores the detailed engineering and environmental studies that we filed with the National Energy Board," Stanway said.
Concern about bitumen are overblown in Stanway's view.
"They talk a lot about acidity. Alberta isn't even the most acidic crude oil in the North American marketplace," Stanway said, and added they seem to confuse the temperature of the bitumen during the refining process with the temperature once it's in the pipe.
On the potential for leaks, sensors will be installed to detect drops in pressure and ongoing monitoring and inspections will occur even in the remote locations, Stanway said, but conceded pinhole leaks are difficult to monitor other than by ongoing inspection.
Enbridge will use directional drilling to send the pipeline 40 to 100 metres underneath rivers and streams, Stanway said, making it difficult for a leak to have an impact on a waterway.
There is a commercial need for the project, Stanway maintained.
"I think you have to ask yourself the question 'why would we want to spend $5.5 billion to build a pipeline that apparently nobody wants?'" Stanway said.
