As another crude oil pipeline spill unfolded in Saskatchewan, this time settling 250,000 litres into the North Saskatchewan River, pipeline proponents might be forgiven for wondering if achieving social license for oil sands pipelines, like Energy East, is becoming an impossible dream.
Adding to the government’s pipeline dilemma was a recent news report that National Energy Board panel members and staff met in private with former Quebec Premier Jean Charest who has acted as a pipeline consultant. The NEB at first denied that any discussion of Energy East had taken place, but backtracked when documents revealed that it had been on the agenda, a procedural no-no for panelists presiding over a quasi-judicial tribunal and one that has the potential to taint the Energy East review process.
These events dealt a real blow to the Trudeau Government’s attempts to rehabilitate a development review process that was left in tatters by the previous government. With the industry’s continuing track record showing little sign of improvement it’s hard to see pipelines meeting Trudeau’s stated precondition of securing Social License before new ones are approved.
In Saskatchewan more than 8,000 oil spills have been reported since 2006. Many, but not all, were contained and removed. However, as we’ve seen with the Burnaby BC spill in 2007, the Kalamazoo River spill of dilbit in Michigan in 2012, and are now seeing with the latest Saskatchewan incident, pipeline spills occur with regularity throughout North America and their impacts can be devastating. It is no wonder then that social license has been and will be hard to achieve.
Social license is simply shorthand for earned public support for development. Mining companies have long understood that community support for their business must be earned, and earned continuously.
Social license is almost certainly more attainable with an unblemished health, safety, and environmental record. But it is also gained by engaging the public openly with a conversation that addresses both the risks like spills as well as benefits like jobs profits and taxes. It is quickly lost by performing badly. The latest oil spill is a real-world case on point.
Public sentiment toward oil sands development and the pipelines that enable it may be strongest in Alberta but declines sharply further away from oil country. Analysis has shown that public appetite for assuming risk is proportional to perception of the rewards gained.
In other words, “what’s in it for me?” is a question that industry would rather address than, “what is the cost of development?”. It is not surprising that Energy East has been sold on jobs and tax revenue with little discussion of risk.
Here in New Brunswick where desperation drives public interest in promised jobs, public support for development should not be taken as a lack of concern about the environment.
As pipeline risks are exposed through real world events and as additional evidence is placed before the National Energy board, pipeline proponents may regret not addressing the downside of pipelines in its ongoing media campaign. Politicians who have become cheerleaders instead of unbiased keepers of the public interest may also find themselves off side with voters.
The former Harper Government set aside more than $30 million for a PR campaign to promote pipeline development. It focussed more on economic arguments, including those put forward by industry, and less on the environmental risks raised by scientists and by opponents, leaving many questioning whether this created a conflict, with government’s responsibility to regulate development. I believe it clearly did and I don’t believe this represents the best tradition of the public service, my former calling.
With the Saskatchewan oil spill now reaching hundreds of kilometres down river we are reminded that the direct risks posed by pipelines are borne by landowners and communities all along their rights of way and too many communities are paying a hefty price.
The reality is that those who reap the lion’s share of benefits do not shoulder all the risks. Increasingly this is seen as a lopsided bargain forced on an unwilling public through a politicised process that seems to be more about approving development than holding it to account.
The industry track record is reason enough that governments should not sanction new pipelines without the full support of those living and working along the route and not without pushing industry to raise the bar to make pipelines safer than their recent performance demonstrates.
Why must we read that “world class spill response” is unable to contain a 250,000 litre spill without endangering the water supply of towns along the way and why should hours or days pass before spills are identified and a response is triggered? Why is it acceptable to leave spilled bitumen in the natural environment because there are no practical means to clean it up?
Imagine if a serious leak in the proposed Energy East pipeline were to go unresolved for 18 hours as happened in Michigan or even 14 hours as apparently happened in Saskatchewan. If just 10% of the crude flowing in the pipeline were to leak for those 14 hours, as much as 10 million litres could end up in a river, lake, or stream before the pipeline was shut down. With this industry’s spill record, this is not an acceptable risk under any circumstance and more so if your drinking water happens to be downstream of the event.
When a pipeline fails in New Brunswick will we expect communities along the route to provide the first responders, many of whom are volunteers? Will we ask them to risk their health and safety to deal with a crisis?
The annual cost of having first responders available, as well as equipping and training them throughout the pipeline’s life should be borne entirely by the pipeline company, not by the local communities nor by taxpayers. That should have been the starting point for those bargaining on our behalf. New Brunswickers will have to wonder as it, like other pipeline cost issues, are unlikely to be addressed by our political leaders.
With the Saskatchewan diluted bitumen spill now reported to have reached a distance equal to the entire length of the Saint John River Valley, those of us who rely on the Saint John River watershed have a right to ask, when are pipelines going to be equipped with fail-safe systems that effectively eliminate the risk of spills, especially near water or wetlands? Why must it be a trade-off with profit frequently trumping public interest?
Surely the best response should be to eliminate the spill potential before it happens. In Saskatchewan the upgrade project behind their spill was not subjected to an environmental review before the pipeline was recommissioned. Apparently in that province it is to have development without effective public oversight. The public might keep this in mind the next time Saskatchewan Premier Wall makes a visit east to tell us about the “safe” business of his pipelines.
In coming weeks, those behind Energy East will have to reassure communities along their route that the Saskatchewan spill or the Michigan spill cannot happen to them. Changing the channel with, “Pipelines are safer than rail” doesn’t qualify as a responsible answer when the source of drinking water for so many here is potentially at risk and when so many existing jobs in agriculture, forestry and tourism require a clean and healthy environment.
Pipeline advocates have focussed their media campaigns almost entirely on fuzzy promises of temporary jobs while ignoring the very real long term risks to existing ones. In ignoring Energy East’s very real downside risks, they have been outflanked by events like the Saskatchewan River spill.
The National Energy Board will have to do a much better job of demonstrating that its review process is rigorous and it’s staff and Panel members are without conflict. That should happen before the Energy East hearings move out of New Brunswick and into the more hostile territory of Quebec and Ontario.
It’s also time Premier Gallant clearly spelled out his expectations for environmental protection, because just as Premier Brad Wall has been forced to do, Mr. Gallant will be the one explaining why the risk-taking was necessary and why he failed to protect our interests. That is if things go as wrong here as they have in Wall’s Saskatchewan.
