Canada Approves Enbridge Line 9 Reversal: Tar Sands Crude to Flow to Montreal

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Albertaโ€™s tar sands crude has a new routeย east.ย 

Canadaโ€™s National Energy Board announced on Thursday the approval of Enbridgeโ€™s request to reverse and expand a portion of the companyโ€™s Line 9 pipeline to allow for crude to flow east to Montreal, Quebec. This follows a July 2012 decision by the NEB to allow reversal of the western Line 9 segment from West Northover to Sarnia, Ontario. As a result, in the words of the NEB, โ€œEnbridge will be permitted to operate all of Line 9 in an eastward direction in order to transport crude oil from western Canada and the U.S. Bakken region to refineries in Ontario andย Quebec.โ€

Canadian activists urged the NEB to fully consider the high risk and small reward of reversing the pipeline, pointing to the โ€œDilBit Disasterโ€ โ€” when another reversed-flow Enbridge pipeline spilled over 800,000 gallons of diluted bitumen into Michiganโ€™s Kalamazoo River โ€” as a warning for what could occur on the Line 9ย route.

As DeSmog Canada has reported, Enbridgeโ€™s Line 9 shares the same design deficiencies as the companyโ€™s Line 6B, which burst in Michigan. Canadian environmental groups are crying foul over the agencyโ€™s non-transparent and restrictive public commentย process.

โ€œItโ€™s pretty obvious the entire regulatory system is broken,โ€ Adam Scott, spokesperson for Environmental Defence, told the Vancouver Observer. โ€œThey restricted the publicโ€™s ability to even participate.โ€ Language in a 2012 budget bill allowed the NEBโ€™s decision to be made without a comprehensive environmental assessment, and the Canadian public was forced to complete a lengthy 10-page application (and given a short two week warning to do so) to even earn the right to submit a publicย comment.

โ€œThere were roughly 150 folks who were actually even allowed to comment or write a letter, and this was also the first major energy project not to have to go through an environmental assessment, so itโ€™s clear the whole system has been stacked against the publicโ€™s interest in favour of oil companies,โ€ saidย Scott.

Nader Hasan of Forest Ethics agrees that the decisionmaking process wasย rigged.

โ€œOur position is that the decision isnโ€™t just wrong, itโ€™s invalid,โ€ said Hasan. โ€œThe rules of the game were rigged in favour of Big Oil. We believed and continue to believe this decision is fundamentally flawed because the process is fundamentallyย unfair.โ€

Forest Ethics is challenging the restrictive public comment process with a lawsuit, launched last year, which they hope will be settled in time to impact future NEBย decisions.ย 

Impacts in the Unitedย States

Though Enbridge’s Line 9 terminates near Montreal, the flow reversal is an integral part of the company’s plans to move diluted bitumen and crude from the Bakken shale to Eastern ports forย export.

As weย first reported on DeSmogBlog in 2012, internal documents revealed how Enbridge was resuscitating an old industry plan, once called Trailbreaker, to link the pipeline system in the American Midwest, where tar sands crude already flows, to a coastal terminal in Portland, Maine. Enbridge’s Line 9, traveling through Ontario and Quebec, is a crucialย link.


Image: NRDC

In 2012,ย 19 advocacy groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Conservation Law Foundation, Greenpeace Canada, the National Wildlife Federation, and 350.org released a report,ย Going in Reverse: The Tar Sands Threat to Central Canada and New England,ย that laid out the then-secret plans to connect Enbridge’s Line 9 with the Portland-Montrealย Pipeline.ย 

Who runs the Portand-Montreal Pipeline system? As the โ€œGoing in Reverseโ€ reportย explains:

Theย Portland-Montreal Pipe Lineย is managed by two linked companies: the Montreal Pipe Line Limited, which owns and operates the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line with its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, the Portland Pipelineย Corporation.

The Portland-Montreal Pipe Line company, as well as Enbridge Inc., have been open about their intent to move tar sands oil east through central Canada and New England.

In 2011, Portland Pipe Line Corp. expressed publicly, โ€œWeโ€™re still very much interested in reversing the flow of one of our two pipe lines to move western Canadian crude to the eastern seaboard,โ€ treasurer Dave Cyr was reported saying. โ€œWeโ€™re having discussions with Enbridge on their Line 9 and what it means toย us.โ€

And then there’s this:ย Montreal Pipe Line Limitedย is owned in large part by Imperial Oil Limited andย Suncor Energy

For the past two years, environmental groups and activists on this side of the border have been working to ensure that the 62-year-old Portland-Montreal Pipeline is never reversed. that travels through a number of ecologically-sensitive areas and crosses hundreds of waterways through Vermont, New Hampshire, andย Maine.ย 

On Tuesday, Vermont residents of 13 towns passed resolutions during Town Meetingย to prohibit the transport of tar sands crude through theย pipeline.ย 

โ€œVermonters have already loudly signaled opposition to transporting tar sands across our rivers and farms, alongside lakes, and through communities of the Northeast Kingdom,โ€ said Jim Murphy, National Wildlife Federation Senior Counsel. โ€œA spill would have a devastating impact on our water supplies, wildlife habitat and tourism industry. And any transport of tar sands through Vermont would encourage growth of an industry that contradicts all of our stateโ€™s leadership and hard work on moving toward cleaner sources ofย energy.โ€

In South Portland, Maine, which hosts the potential export terminal, residents worked to pass a โ€œWaterfront Protection Ordinanceโ€ on the ballot last fall, but were outspent 6-to-1 by Big Oil interests.ย ย 

The resistance of New Englanders might already be having an impact. While Enbridge was outspoken on a 2008 earnings call about the potential of linking its proposed tar sands pipelines to the Portland-Montreal Pipeline, this week a company spokesperson told VTDigger.org that Enbridge had โ€œno interestโ€ in using the Portland-Montreal Pipeline to move tar sandsย crude.ย 

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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