Vancouver City Council recently put forth a resolution opposing the twinning of a pipeline between the Alberta tar sands and Vancouver Harbour proposed by Kinder Morgan. Reports CBC.ca:

The company plans to twin its current crude oil pipeline in a $5-billion project that could see tanker traffic in the harbour increase fivefold, and that has some local politicians concerned about the increased possibility of environmental disaster.

The Vancouver Park Board, North America’s only elected parks department, has also voted to support a motion formally opposing the project.

The resolution states that staff will be directed to prepare a by-law requiring “pipeline operators and oil tankers using Burrard Inlet, Vancouver Harbour and/or the Fraser River to indemnify the City of Vancouver and existing local industries through appropriate liability insurance at a level equal to the projected amount of clean up operation costs, and loss of business compensation for a worst case scenario oil spill.”

The Wilderness Committee notes that “This will force Kinder Morgan to show if they intend to actually cover the full cost of clean up and recovery from any incidents that result from their expansion.”

“We bear a ton of risk as a city, not just environmental risk, but also economic risk,” Councillor Andrea Reimer told the CBC. “Our economy depends on a beautiful shoreline — and also our international reputation.”

The resolution also promises:

THAT, interim to a bylaw coming back to Council, the Mayor write to Prime Minister Harper expressing the City of Vancouver’s strenuous opposition to any increase in oil tanker traffic, or measures that lead to increased oil tanker traffic, as it poses an unacceptable and unmitigated risk to Vancouver’s economy and environment; 

The thing about pipelines and tankers is that they spill. All of them do. Sometimes only a trickle, sometimes much more.

Oil spills kill animals, destroy breeding habitat and persist as toxins that “cause diseases for many animal species for decades to come.” They’re not only bad for our animal friends but for us too, obliterating entire industries dependent on the health of the ecosystem, such as fishing, aquaculture and tourism. 

Further, expanding infrastructure to enable the extraction, processing and sale of tar sands oil is incredibly shortsighted, criminally so. And the extent to which we are enabling the richest companies in the world to plunder our land - our WEALTH - makes us all culpable.

We are poisoning ourselves and our lands in the not condemning the practice - in not taking to the streets in the name of all life on earth - and will be remembered by history as the most greedy epoch of human civilization.

Yes, I feel that strongly about this issue. 

Here is the letter I submitted via the Wilderness Committee’s handy letter tool:

To Whom It Concerns:

I am writing to voice my grave concern over the proposed Kinder Morgan oil pipeline from the Alberta tar sands into Vancouver Harbour.

That we should endanger our lands, waters and the habitat of untold species for our own greedy addiction to fossil fuels is untenable given our current understanding of the role our consumption has played in the climate crisis we now face. Moving forward with the pipeline would be an abomination, bringing unforetold costs to be born by those who will profit least from its construction. 

I support the resolution by Vancouver City Council opposing the Kinder Morgan pipeline and hope you will join me. It is our duty in the present to ensure the very best for those most subject to our decisions in the future. 

Many thanks for your thoughtful consideration.

Sincerely,

Hilary Henegar

Vision Vancouver has also launched a petition to the same effect as the council’s resolution.