Pipeline construction shutdown ridiculous
Recently three federal court of appeal judges closed down construction of the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
The board finding was that the operation of project related marine vessels is likely to result in significant adverse effect to the southern resident killer whales. What have these judges been smoking?
Three thousand cargo/tanker ships per year presently charter the Vancouver waters out to the open seas, and with the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, only one more ship per day would be added to the present 3,000 ships per year. They claim that double hull hi tech tankers are gross. They did not take into account that with the expansion, tankers would have a four tug boat escort out to the open ocean waters.
Presently, 130 million cubic metres of untreated sewage and runoff enters into the ocean waters off Victoria on a daily basis. Construction to cure this problem with a sewage treatment plant has begun at a cost of $765 million for completion by the year 2020.
In summary, the Kinder Morgan pipeline construction shut down because of one extra ship per day in Vancouver waters. Three judges that did not take the time to do their research at the same time claiming that the federal government did not take adequate research on the environmental aspects of the Kinder Morgan pipeline construction. Unbelievable!
Joe Sawchuk
Duncan