Court rules

So the BC Appeals Court has decided that Alberta can send whatever they like through a pipe they will build from Edmonton and the Alberta Tar Sands, into and through British Columbia, crossing land and stream on the way right into downtown Vancouver! 
BC cannot use environmental protection laws to stop the process Trans Mountain wants to build and has already started building in anticipation of a favorable ruling. Just like predicted. 

As intended, the pipeline will terminate right on Burrard Inlet in Burnaby. At the largest port on the West Coast and within tidal reach of every sandy beach, Stanley Park and virtually all communities in Metro Vancouver. You remember the pipeline that the Americans were desperate to get rid of and would have taken 10 cents on the dollar for? And Justin Trudeau and his addled Liberals bought it for twice its value. And that is only part.

Your neighborhood?

Tanker traffic will quadruple and have to navigate the tides and narrow channels on its way out to the Pacific Ocean. Past English Bay, Georgia Straight, our Gulf Islands and the America San Juan islands and Victoria.
We are told there is no risk of a spill. Its all okay folks. We have never had a real answer to what happens in that event and some only assume that a spill in the BC Mountains would just release the pipeline product into the streams and rivers and it would find its own way to the Pacific. And bitumen doesn't float away on water, it sinks to the bottom. 

Leaking into arable land is another scenario. BC has only 4 percent of it's land available for farming. 

But pipeline company and oil company executives tell us don't worry, we're looking after it. This from companies who cannot explain why BC gasoline prices are 20% higher here than everywhere else in the country.
And these companies only talk about a spill on BC lands on the way to the terminal. They can not have any guarantee of the tankers that would visit here. After pumping it into a tanker in Burnaby they have no responsibility!

above the Burnaby terminal & tank farm! Don't light a match!

We had a small spill in English Bay a while ago, and the TV stations were covering it for hours before any attempt was made to contain the sheen of oil in the water. 
Mainly because the Federal government had shut down the Coast Guard on the West Coast! Not only that, once blame was established, and the tanker company was billed for the cost of cleanup, it only offered to pay a small percentage of the costs! 

In case you were wondering, Exxon oil has not paid all the costs or fines of their Valdez spill 30 years later! Their retainer lawyers are seeing to that!
The BP spill in the gulf of Mexico has resulted in a huge dead zone where nothing can live or grow again! No shrimp, no fish, not even seaweed! And all the while the Deep Water Horizon was leaking underwater the CEO of the corporation was lying through his teeth about what was going on down there. And even told the President of America and the US Navy to butt out! And they did. 
The Kalamazoo river spill is ongoing as the heavy crude in that spill continues to pollute and the company makes many returns to dredge again. No mention of fish populations or tainted water. And there are hundreds of pipeline spills all over America where pipelines ruptured and destroyed communities.

How long until someone knew about this?

Which brings us to exactly what would spill. The court decision says that Alberta can ship oil through BC whether we like it or not. Now there might be a chink in their armor here. What defines oil?
As it is intended right now, what will come through that pipeline to Vancouver, is NOT oil, or heavy crude even, is it bitumen, a gravelly mixture of tar like substance that will not flow through a pipe across the Rockies.

So the oil company needs to make that tar sand product pump-able, and they dilute it with heated water and certain chemicals to make it liquid. It is now called dilbit, diluted bitumen. The stickler here, is that no oil company will reveal what chemicals they use to treat the dilbit, that information is a trade secret. What some have learned is that whatever chemicals are used to liquify the piped product are surely carcinogenic and should be nowhere near human communities along the route of the pipeline. And I have not heard a single so-called reporter ask what happens to that so-called water. This is often called a 'scientific uncertainty'. Sort of like Nixon Talk, when he called a lie, a 'terminological inexactitude'!

Do you see the problem here? How can our first responders, who will have to react to pipeline breaks, product spills, clean-ups and possible fires etc, be able to attack the toxic problem if they have no idea what the product contains? Firemen say all the time that if they don't know what is in that burning building they are not going to send in guys or gals to investigate when a threat to life exists. How many HazMat teams need to be standing by? Some products in that dilbit mix can be benzine, tuluene and hexane. Toxic to the environment and downright dangerous to people!

HazMat procedures for workers, what about us?

And also the Court ruled that an oil pipeline can be built through BC and used, but it did say an OIL pipeline. They never thought on the idea that hazardous chemicals were being piped across some of the most pristine areas of British Columbia. Could they pipe cyanide through it? What onus does that present to our Federal Government responsibilities? Will BC have an inspection point at our border with Alberta to analyze what the hell is passing in that pipe? And a shut-off valve if needed?

So meanwhile, the powers-that-be keep saying it is okay, Canada needs it. So put your money where your mouth is Alberta and Canada, give us a fund of about a billion dollars for a fix if needed. We'll use the interest to train for disaster response.

This sort of smacks of what the Federal government did when the Lac-Megantic rail disaster occurred, resulting in oil fires and explosions that killed 42 people and destroyed all but three of the downtown buildings. The government enacted a law stating that railroads now had to inform communities when dangerous cargo was moving through their towns. Sounds good huh?
But wait, they only have to tell you up to a YEAR AFTER those goods have passed by!

The question remains; Can a people be exposed to danger by a court ruling?

You trying to keep the faith too? I am at the edge of losing mine.

And I haven't even mentioned endangered Orcas or already dwindling BC wild salmon runs yet! Fish don't swim too good in sludge. Trees don't grow either.



Links -

http://bitchesnbelches.blogspot.com/2018/04/top-20-oil-spills-from-pipelines-since.html

http://bitchesnbelches.blogspot.com/2014/04/tar-sands-again.html