Oil - Pipelines

. . . The United Steelworkers, which represents 30,000 refinery workers in collective bargaining, tracks workplace deaths. It reports that 27 workers died at refineries in the past five years – more than five a year.

That’s intolerable. And it’s a big part of the reason that 5,000 USW oil and chemical workers, including me, are on unfair labor practice strikes nationwide. We believe not enough is being done to prevent our co-workers from leaving refineries and chemical plants in body bags. None of us wants to be the next to lose his or her life for no good reason.

A rally was held Feb 5 outside Ft. Langley on unceded Kwantlen Territory in response to Kinder Morgan drilling near the Salmon River @ 22926 Rawlison Crescent, home to endangered species, in preparation to build the proposed Trans Mountain Dilbit (Tar/Oil Sands Heavy Crude) Export Pipeline through the area.
A further march and rally is planned for Fort Langley, details TBA.

About 80 people took part in a roadside rally against the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion on Glover Road near the intersection with Rawlison Crescent in Fort Langley.

They carried signs that bore messages like "no Kinder Morgan surprises," "clean energy now" and "save the salmon."

The protest was near a test drilling site on Rawlison, where Kinder Morgan was doing geotechnical testing he week before.

One resident, who asked not to be named, told The Times that several large vehicles blocked off access to a community mailbox for five days.

The Guardian recently reported that Harvard University has increased its investments in fossil fuels by almost seven fold over the last few months.

Canada’s energy sector is more at risk from domestic environmental extremists than from religiously inspired terrorist organizations like Al Qaida, warns an RCMP report recently obtained via an Access of Information request.

“The Canadian law enforcement and security intelligence community have noted a growing radicalized faction of environmentalists who advocate the use of criminal activity to promote the protection of the natural environment,” alerts the document written by the RCMP’s infrastructure intelligence team. The 22-page report from 2011 was only recently released.

A pipeline rupture in Eastern Montana on Saturday, which spilled up to 50,000 gallons of Bakken shale crude oil into the Yellowstone River, has local residents worried that their water supplies may now be contaminated.

"I am not saying the water is unsafe. I am not saying it is safe." —Mary Jo Gehnert, Dawson County Disaster and Emergency Services coordinator 

Reactions to the federal government's attempts to stop NAFTA's environmental oversight commission from investigating environmental damage caused by tailings ponds in Alberta's oil sands came fast and fierce from critics.

“There’s compelling evidence that [industry contamination] is happening," said Dale Marshall of Environmental Defence, "and that the federal government is denying it, and not allowing that information to be known to Canadians and the people who live in that area." 

Another court challenge involving Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline project was filed Tuesday, bringing the total to 19.

The suit in B.C. Supreme Court by the Coastal First Nations group (representing several First Nations including the Haida and the Metlakatla) and the Gitga’at First Nation was added to a growing list of court challenges over the controversial project, which received federal approval last June.

All the other court challenges have been filed with the Federal Court of Appeal.

Industry Minister James Moore who represents the Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam riding engaged in blatantly false fear mongering last week. He threatened a Lac Megantic disaster if we don’t accept Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. In order to springboard from a disgusting reliance on a horrific tragedy to reach his ridiculous conclusion, he had to make stuff up.