The National Energy Board issued an order Thursday (October 23) granting Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI) access to Burnaby Mountain for survey work, despite opposition from the City of Burnaby.
The order means the city cannot stop Kinder Morgan from conducting survey work on the mountain, even though it's municipal land.
Mayor Derek Corrigan was not surprised by the news and said the NEB process was deeply flawed.
"It's not surprising they will attempt to extend their authority to run our city, I'm not surprised by it," he said. "If we are going to try to resolve this issue it's going to end up in the federal courts."
Corrigan said the city will consult its legal counsel and will likely appeal.
"We are not going to accept this as being the final word for us," he said.
According to the order, Kinder Morgan has to give the city 48 hours written notice before starting any work.
The order is just the latest development in a long legal battle between Kinder Morgan and the City of Burnaby. Kinder Morgan wants to run the pipeline through Burnaby Mountain but must first survey the land to see if the pipeline route is feasible. The city owns the land, and ticketed Kinder Morgan for cutting down trees in a public park, which raised a legal conflict between Kinder Morgan, which believes it has a right to conduct the work, as per the National Energy Board Act, and the city, which has the power to enact bylaws from the provincial government.
The NEB also ruled it had the authority to consider constitutional questions related to its own authority, while the City of Burnaby's legal counsel was arguing the B.C. Supreme Court should rule on the matter.
Glacier Media contacted Kinder Morgan, but no one immediately returned calls.
The National Energy Board Act allows companies to conduct survey work and build pipelines on land without the property owners' permission, but this case with Burnaby was the first-ever conflict involving a municipal land.
