Residents and city officials in Chilliwack, B.C. say they're bracing for the impact of a proposed plan to twin an oil pipeline running through the Fraser Valley.
Kinder Morgan is working on plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline that runs from Edmonton to a terminal in Burnaby, increasing its capacity to 700,000 barrels a day.
The current pipeline runs under Kinkora Golf Course, land that has been in Don Forbes' family since the 1800s.
"Right now, 300,000 barrels a day is going underneath us," Forbes told CTV News.
To build the second line, Kinder Morgan would have to tear up the golf course, and Forbes would have no recourse because the company owns the right of way. Forbes says the construction would create a massive trench measuring about 60 feet in width.
"I'm not particularly thrilled to have my business disrupted -- for how long, I don't know. And how we negotiate the restoration would be the big question. Do we get a bag of grass seed or turf it or what do they do?" he said.
Kinder Morgan will decide later this year if it will make an application for the project with the goal of completion in 2016.
Chilliwack Mayor Sharon Gaetz says she's watching the process closely.
"They need to consult; they need to look after the environmental safety. They also need to think about how it would affect the life of this city when they're doing it," she said.
And environmentalists are concerned about the possibility of a spill, similar to what happened in 2007 when thousands of litres of oil spewed out after the pipeline was ruptured in Burnaby. A storage facility in Abbotsford also saw a small spill earlier this year.
"If there was an oil spill on the West Coast it would have huge impacts on all life in the area. Of course, in a heavily populated area like the Metro Vancouver region, if there was an oil spill it would have really drastic consequences potentially for human health," Ben West of the Wilderness Committee said.
Kinder Morgan didn't return calls requesting comment Friday. If plans for the expansion are finalized, a lengthy environmental assessment would be necessary.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's St. John Alexander