Canada's Trans Mountain oil pipeline clears hurdle despite fears for seaway

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Canada's Trans Mountain oil pipeline clears hurdle despite fears for seaway

Associated Press in Seattle
Friday 20 May 2016 02.14 BST

Canada’s energy regulators have recommended the approval of the Trans Mountain oil sands pipeline, which has drawn environmental and tribal protests over the dramatic increase it would mean to the number of oil tankers moving through the waters between the US and Canada.

The National Energy Board recommended the federal government conditionally approve Kinder Morgan Canada’s plan to nearly triple pipeline capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of crude oil a day. The $5.4bn Trans Mountain project would carry oil from Alberta ’s oil sands to near Vancouver, British Columbia, to be loaded on to tankers for export to Asian and US markets. It would mean a sevenfold increase to shipping through the Salish Sea.

Important benefits of the project – including thousands of construction jobs, hundreds of long-term jobs and increased access to diverse markets for Canadian oil – outweighed the “residual burdens”, the energy board’s chief environment officer, Robert Steedman, said during a news conference.

The board concluded that the project was in Canada’s public interest, despite finding it would increase greenhouse gas emissions and marine traffic would have “significant adverse effects” on southern resident killer whales. The orcas, which spend time in the inland waters of Washington state, are protected as endangered in the US and Canada.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/canadas-trans-mountain-oil-pipeline-clears-hurdle-despite-fears-for-seaway

[pscot]

1. It's a big adjustment

learning to think of Canada as Mordor North.