As the National Energy Board hearings into the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline resume in Smithers, B.C. Monday, the debate over the project continues to be altered by spills involving Enbridge.
On Friday, 159,000 litres of crude leaked from a relatively new Enbridge pipeline into a field near Grand Marsh, Wisconsin. Although Enbridge says the oil is fully contained, bad public relations are still damaging the company’s reputation.
A report released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board into a massive oil spill in Michigan that happened two years ago suggests Enbridge didn’t learn from earlier incidents.
Linda Nowlan of the World Wildlife Federation points to the Wisconsin leak as an example of why the B.C. pipeline project should be stopped.
“This latest incident shows that spills are bound to happen and are bound to damage the environment, so what it shows is the project, the Northern Gateway project, just shouldn’t go ahead," Nowlan said.
David Anderson, a former Liberal MP who fought for the federal moratorium on oil tankers on B.C.’s coastline two decades ago, says the debate is similar today.
“We wanted a safer system, which we got. It was chipped away at later, and yes it’s true, there was the Exxon Valdez, he said. "But still we’ve had a much safer route from the marine point of view."
The New Democrat leader Adrian Dix strongly supports the moratorium as a way of protecting the environment.
Dix addressed the issue shortly before leaving on a tour of B.C.’s northwest coast Sunday to talk to community leaders about the pipeline.
“There’s a reason why that moratorium has been in place,” he said. “The coast is hugely valuable to our economy, to our ecology and to our culture.”
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Ed Watson
