The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project proposes to build two parallel pipelines 1,170 kilometres from Alberta’s Tar Sands to B.C’s coast at Kitimat. If approved, the pipelines will travel through the salmon-bearing Upper Fraser and Skeena watersheds and will open our northern coastal waters to oil supertanker traffic.

The Risks:

• The pipelines pose a risk to the Skeena and Upper Fraser watersheds, home to the largest wild salmon runs in North America and vital to local indigenous communities. The Skeena alone contributes an estimated $110 million to the region’s annual economy. Enbridge records over 65 pipeline spills annually. Even a minor spill in other fragile rivers, such as the Morice and Stuart, could be devastating for the salmon and those who rely on them.

• The expansion of tar sands associated with the project would create:

  o an additional 2.3 million litres of toxic tailings each day and use 540,000 barrels per day of water

  o 6.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year – the equivalent to putting 1.6 million more cars on the road.

• A long-standing moratorium on crude tanker traffic on BC’s north coast would be lifted to transport Enbridge’s dirty tar sands oil along B.C.’s biologically diverse coast. Enbridge promises state of the art technology for supertankers but has absolutely no liability or responsibility for the oil once it leaves the pipeline.

• Without respecting Aboriginal Rights and Title, there is the potential for legal challenges to the project.

The Enbridge Gateway pipeline project raises significant environmental, social, legal and economic concerns. Given these risks, the project demands a decision-making process comparable in scope.

The Process: A call for a Public Inquiry

The current Joint Review Panel to be set-up by the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is too narrow in scope, failing to assess issues such as climate change impacts, BC’s energy future and risks of tanker spills. The process also ignores social license and is inaccessible to most of the northern impacted communities whose livelihoods and cultures depend on healthy rivers and salmon runs.

When a similar project was proposed in 1976, the federal government set up the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry under Commissioner Andrew Thompson. The Thompson Inquiry was asked not only to address the proposed Kitimat port project, but the broader concerns of Canadians about oil tanker traffic on the west coast. Thompson was clear that the environmental and social effects of the proposed oil port had to be considered simultaneously with the bigger question of whether such a port was necessary for Canada’s energy future.

A similar public inquiry should be established for the Enbridge Gateway project given its magnitude and scope. Momentum is growing to support this call. To take action, visit http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/281/t/9735/p/dia/action/public/?act... or www.friendsofwildsalmon.ca.

B.C.’s Northwest region has a history of supporting business development, including mining, forestry and commercial fishing. However projects that threaten the existing salmon economy and way of life are stopped, including proposed fish farms on the Skeena and coalbed methane projects in the Sacred Headwaters.

Residents would welcome an opportunity to vision the energy future for the region that doesn’t put the salmon and environment at risk.