Orca protection must be part of Canadian pipeline -- energy board
A marine protection plan, aimed at safeguarding endangered orca whales, must be part of the multi-billion-dollar plan to triple capacity of a Canadian oil pipeline, the National Energy Board of Canada says in a draft recommendation.
The NEB was sent back to review the proposed Trans-Mountain Pipeline expansion, after a stinging Canadian appellate court decision last summer.
The court said that the regulatory agency failed to consider potential impacts on marine mammals and did not adequately consult Aboriginal First Nations when it approved the project three years ago.
The expanded pipeline would carry up to 895,000 barrels of bitumen crude oil from Alberta across British Columbia to an oilport at Burnaby, on Burrard Inlet just east of Vancouver.
It would not stay there. The oil would be exported, meaning a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic with 34 tankers a month passing through marine waters shared by the U.S. and Canada. The tankers' would traverse Haro Strait between the San Juan Islands and Canada's Gulf Islands, and then the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Any tanker spill in these internationally famous waters, bounded by national parks and monuments in both countries, would be catastrophic.
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