Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, April 22, 2013

Enbridge donations flow to municipalities along pipeline 9B

MONTREAL — The town of Mirabel got $10,000, and put it toward the cost of a generator for its fire department. Belleville, Ont., got $25,000 to turn a city bus into a mobile emergency command centre. And just two weeks ago, Vaudreuil-Dorion got $20,000 for new hazardous material and communications equipment for its fire department.

What do these towns have in common?

They are all on or near the route of Enbridge’s 9B oil pipeline, and just as the company is seeking approval for its controversial project to reverse and substantially increase the flow of crude oil through the pipeline, it has given these and other towns sizable donations.

Made in the name of “safe communities,” the donations are legal, proponents and critics concede.

But as the April 19 deadline approached for towns to seek permission to speak before the National Energy Board reviewing the proposal, the question was whether Enbridge expects something in return.

Guy Charbonneau, the mayor of Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, a town traversed by the pipeline 45 kilometres northwest of Montreal, said Enbridge has been handing out money everywhere it goes during the last few years.

His town accepted $7,200 in 2009 for defibrillators in libraries and arenas, and last year received $16,700 to buy an articulated off-road truck to fight fires in hard-to-reach places.

But Charbonneau said he is not so easily bought.

“People say municipalities are being bought — according to the rumour mill, I’ve personally received $100,000,” Charbonneau said. “But it’s not true ... and I can’t be bought for $100,000.”

Charbonneau says he’s neither for nor against the proposal, which would allow Enbridge to bring oilsands oil (or bitumen) from Alberta to refineries in Montreal and Lévis, and also increase the flow by 25 per cent, to reach 300,000 barrels per day.

“If everyone says we’ll have electric cars by tomorrow morning, we’ll tear out the pipeline,” Charbonneau said. “But that’s not going to happen. (The pipeline) is a necessary evil, like hydro lines, because this is the world we live in.”

Still, Charbonneau has a lot of questions about the proposal, and has been vocal about the lack of answers coming from Enbridge, especially in terms of the company’s emergency response plan if there were a spill on Ste-Anne-des-Plaines’ very flat land. Is there an emergency button, for example, to push to switch off the flow of oil in case of a leak? If so, where is it?

According to a report in the Watershed Sentinel, there were more than 700 spills from Enbridge oil pipelines in Canada and the United States during the decade from 2000 to 2010, releasing a total of 132,715 barrels of oil — more than half the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill of 257,000 barrels.

Enbridge’s worst spill was in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 2010, for which the cleanup costs have surpassed $800 million. (In July 2012, Enbridge was fined $3.7 million by the U.S. pipeline regulator for the Kalamazoo spill.)

Fearing a spill in her municipality, which sits atop the 9B pipeline, Patricia Domingos, the mayor of Ste-Justine-de-Newton near the Ontario border decided to refuse the $10,000 she was offered by Enbridge to shore up her fire department.

“Since when does a company hand out money without anyone asking for it, and why is it giving it for free?” Domingos asked, adding that if there is a spill further along the pipeline in Ontario, the oil will travel downstream through waterways to Quebec.

The pipeline went into operation in 1976, but until 2010 Enbridge never approached the municipality about anything, Domingos said.

“I have the feeling they’re trying to buy us so we will put a positive stamp on (the project). I won’t do it, and the other councillors felt the same.”

“(Enbridge) says it wants to help us, but we never saw them or heard from them before, they never worried about us, then all of a sudden they want to reverse the flow so they come and see us ... If there is a spill, the $10,000 won’t help.”

The municipality of Sainte-Justine-de-Newton has also applied for standing before the National Energy Board, Domingos said — this is the first time the NEB is applying controversial new rules that limit participation at its hearings. Her application, listing the reasons for her interest in 9B, must be sent to both the NEB and Enbridge for consideration, she added.

Eric Prud’Homme, the public relations director at Enbridge, says the company’s intentions are pure — to bolster safety in the communities along its right-of-way.

“The same groups that criticize the (donations) are also asking us what we are doing to keep communities safe,” Prud’Homme said.

“This is what we do.”

In 2012, Enbridge awarded 109 Safe Communities grants totalling $1.15 million to communities in Canada, which doesn’t include donations made to other charitable, non-profit and community organizations unrelated to safety.

Prud’Homme couldn’t say how much of the $1.15 million went to towns in Ontario and Quebec along the 9B route.

Asked about the apparent contradiction of providing funding for emergency response while insisting the reversal of the pipeline won’t pose any added danger to communities along the way, Prud’Homme said: “You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t. ... We’re doing this for the right reasons. Safety is our priority.”

In fact, Prud’Homme denied the grants have anything to do with the proposal to reverse the flow of the pipeline. The proposal was only submitted in 2012, he said — Enbridge has been handing out grants in the area for the last four years.

Environmental groups point out that a similar proposal to reverse the flow was first suggested in 2008, however. Known as the Trailbreaker project, the plan was initially to reverse the flow of the Enbridge pipeline from Alberta through Ontario and Quebec, then through an adjoining pipeline all the way down to Portland, Me., where the oil could be exported.

Enbridge and Portland-Montreal Pipe Line shelved the plan in the face of mounting opposition and deteriorating economic conditions, but critics contend that Enbridge has since proposed a similar plan in smaller parcels: gaining approval by the NEB first to reverse the flow from Sarnia, Ont., to North Westover, and now seeking its approval to reverse the flow from North Westover to Montreal.

The grants to municipalities along the right-of-way came after the company first sought to bring Alberta oil east.

“It’s one thing to finance an opera troupe, and I know companies make donations to cities, too, but it’s all about the context,” said Equiterre co-founder Steven Guilbeault. “I find it unacceptable and totally unethical that they would start making those donations. It’s not like Enbridge has a history of making donations in Quebec or in these municipalities. It just so happens they have a project where municipal governments could be called upon to decide whether or not this project conforms to zoning laws or whether there are issues with drinkable water. (Such approval by municipalities could be necessary for the Quebec Environment Ministry to issue a permit to the company.)

“The fact the company is out there making those gifts to specific municipalities makes us really uncomfortable. There’s no written or even spoken implication that if (the towns) make the right decision, the money will flow,” Guilbeault added, “but it’s implicit.”

Enbridge will be holding public meetings this week in Mirabel and Ste-Anne-des-Plaines on April 24, and in St-André d’Argenteuil and Rigaud on April 25. All of them are from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The city of Montreal, meanwhile, which submitted its application to participate at the NEB hearings on Friday, is expected to submit a formal request to the Quebec government at Monday’s city council meeting to do an environmental assessment of the project.

Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author:  Catherine Solyom

No comments:

Post a Comment