That a small amount of crude oil in the wrong place at the wrong time can have big political impact says more about politics than crude oil.
After less than 6 bbl of crude leaked from the Trans Mountain pipeline 20 km southwest of Merritt, BC, on Jan. 13, activists responded with typical exaggeration.
“This spill is yet another reminder of just how dangerous these pipelines are to British Columbians and our quality of life,” said a “climate change campaigner” at the Wilderness Committee, Vancouver.
Pipelines are a volatile subject in British Columbia.
Kinder Morgan wants to expand Trans Mountain’s capacity for carrying oil from Edmonton, Alta., to Vancouver to 890,000 b/d from 300,000 b/d. Enbridge Inc. wants to build a 525,000-b/d system called Northern Gateway between Alberta and Kitimat, BC.
Because the projects would expand access to markets of the environmentally demonized products of Alberta’s oil sands, they’re subject to as much opposition as TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL system between Alberta and the US Gulf Coast.
The spill near Merritt occurred the day before Alberta Premier Alison Redford met in Kelowna, BC, with Christy Clark, her counterpart in British Columbia who has shown less than wholehearted enthusiasm for new or expanded pipelines.
Earlier in June, Clark’s government made its opposition to the Northern Gateway project official by declaring Enbridge hadn’t adequately addressed spill preparedness.
In an announcement about that decision, British Columbia described a list of conditions for approval that included a “fare share” of revenue. Redford opposes revenue-sharing.
The premiers said they had a friendly meeting in Kelowna on topics of common interest that didn’t include Northern Gateway.
Meanwhile, pipeline opponents used the June 13 leak to amplify their message. A local Sierra Club representative said it “shows that BC is not immune to potentially disastrous oil spills.”
By the middle of the next day, Kinder Morgan had removed oil and contaminated soil at the site of its “potentially disastrous” mishap and was ready to restart the pipeline.
(Online June 14, 2013; author’s e-mail: [email protected])