Three hundred scientists from across Canada have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Harper urging him to reject Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.
The joint review panel’s report on the project, written after months of public hearings throughout B.C. in 2012 and 2013, is heavily flawed and the federal government should not be used as a basis on which to make a decision, say the scientists.
“The Canadian electorate expected the JRP ruling to present a balanced and appropriate consideration of the risks and benefits of the project, drawing upon the best available evidence,” the letter states.
The National Energy Board announced that it had approved the pipeline project on December 19, 2013. The federal government is expected to make a final decision on whether the project can proceed within the next few weeks.
Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline would transport bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to Kitimat, where it would be exported by tanker to Asia. First Nations and environmental groups oppose the project on environmental grounds, saying a marine oil spill in North Coast waters would be especially devastating.
The report is flawed for five reasons, says the group of scientists: it failed to articulate the rationale for its findings; it considered a narrow set of risks against a broad set of economic benefits; it relied on information from Enbridge without an outside review; it contradicted scientific information in official government documents; and it treated uncertain risks as unimportant risks, and assumed they would be negated by Enbridge’s yet-to-be-developed mitigation measures.
“The JRP’s conclusion — that Canadians would be better off with than without the Northern Gateway Project given all ‘environmental, social and economic considerations’ — stands unsupported,” says the letter.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark has set five conditions that must be met before the province will support the project. The federal government’s recent announcement that pipeline operators must carry up to $1 billion in insurance costs in case of an oil spill is the same amount the B.C. government insisted Enbridge carry as part of the five conditions.
