Pipeline issues

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 21:49:15
To: sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca
From: David Orton <greenweb@fox.nstn.ca>
Precedence: bulk
Return-Path: <sust-mar-mml-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>

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Hello members of "sust-mar",
The message below may be of interest to some. It deals with my
response to an inquiry from a university student concerning how
the Sable gas project "made it through the environmental impact
assessment so easily".

David Orton

>
>Hello David,
>I was told I might be able to get some 
>information from you on the pipeline project.  
>
>I am writing a paper on how the project made it through the 
>environmental impact assessment so easily.  
>
>I have a few of your articles, (Hearings not for listening, 
>Environmental Hearings and Existential Dielemmas: The Sable 
>Gas Project and the RTNAC).
>
>I was wondering if you could direct me to any other information 
>about problems you have seen throughout the process and why 
>these problems have been so easily ignored.
>
>Thank you for your time,
>
>


Dear ___: 
Thanks for your e-mail about about the pipeline/Sable gas
project. You raise an interesting topic for your paper,
"how the project made it through the environmental impact
assessment so easily." These are some reasons which come
to my mind, and forgive my indulgence:

1. The National Energy Board which oversaw the environmental
assessment process, incarnated in our region as "The Joint
Public Review Panel", is in the business of promoting oil
and gas sales. It is a facilitating agency for the fossil
fuel industry with a continentalist, not nationalist
perspective. In 1987, the NEB put foreign and domestic
customers on an equal footing and abandoned the previous
policy of national self-sufficiency in energy. Canada now
exports more than 50 percent of the crude oil and natural
gas it produces. The NEB basically accepts the assumptions
of the industry, e.g. need for economic growth, continuing
use of fossil fuels, and that Canada should supply the
United States. The Panel, that is the judges, would be
selected only if they shared these assumptions. So who picks
the panel members and the world view they share, seems rather
fundamental for the kind of questions asked and
openmindedness of any formal review process.

2. The natural gas industry is new to the Maritimes. There
is no local knowledge of the track record of the industry.
So all of us had to start from zero knowledge and it took
some time for those who worked at it, before we became
familiar with what had gone on out West with this industry,
the safety record of gas pipelines in Canada and elsewhere,
or what had happened in the North Sea, etc.  As well as
finding out about this CRITICAL material, there was a
massive information out-pouring from the offshore and
onshore proponents, which set the parameters of discussion
for the overall project. (As well as the information on the
Sable gas project itself, there were three pipeline
proposals, each with substantial documentation.) So the
proponents of the pipeline project controlled the data base
and the essential parameters of discussion. They were ably
assisted by the local media, who never once for example, did
any in depth reporting of those in fundamental opposition to
the whole project and what their critique was.

3. I think the discussion about this project should really 
have started when the first exploration wells were drilled
on the Scotian Shelf back in the 60s. There was no discussion
that I can recall, within the environmental movement or by
those in the scientific community who would have known. We
had about nine wells drilled on Sable Island itself, and
wells were drilled right up to the edge of the Gully, i.e.
the Primrose Field.  There were, according to the public
material circulated, 125 test wells drilled in the
N.S. offshore region. I found out that there were two well
blow-outs in 1984 and one well took ten months to cap and
abandon. If an oil company pays money for an offshore oil
and gas exploratory lease, and then finds oil and gas, the
assumption is that "development" can go ahead. So the basic
discussion on whether or not there should be an oil and gas
industry should take place before the rights to explore are
handed out. I myself only became aware of what I mention
here through researching the industry. I knew essentially
nothing about oil and gas, or their past record when I first
started looking into the industry in June of 1996, as part
of helping to try and build an opposition.

4. The process for the formal hearings was designed for
lawyers and professional lobbyists for the oil and gas
industry and was extremely complex, bureaucratic and
legalistic. One newspaper report said that on any one day
at the formal hearings, there were about 65 lawyers
present. Basically the hearings were run like a courtroom
with sworn testimony, cross examination, continual lawyer
interruptions, etc. Everyone stood up whenever the hearings
panel entered or exited the hearings room. Only two known
environmental groups boycotted this process, rural
landowners and tenants in the Anti-Pipeline Group and the
Green Web. Mainstream environmental groups, hunting and
fishing organizations, aboriginal groups, entered the
process. There was federal government money for
participating in the process, if groups wanted to apply. As
someone outside the process, I found there was no
coordination or sharing of information by the groups who
might be considered to some degree in opposition. Within the
process the panel ruled on the legitimacy of topics. Thus
the panel ruled for example, the end use of natural gas was
an indoor air quality issue which was not within the scope
of the Sable gas project; and the request for an independent
environmental assessment of the overland pipeline was turned
down. Those of us who boycotted, felt that by participating
in such a rigged process, environmentalists conveyed
legitimacy. The media focus was overwhelmingly on corporate
concerns and infighting.

5. Most rural people who I worked with, came together from a
"not-in-my-backyard" concern regarding the placing of the
pipeline. This position is totally legitimate, as far I am
concerned. The company made "concessions" to move the
pipeline where members of the rural opposition were
particularly public and vocal. These had the effect of some
oppositional voices withdrawing, as the pipeline was moved
out of their community, e.g. Glengarry in Pictou County, or
off the land of a particular landowner/tenant.

6. The whole non-formal public "consulting" process in rural
N.S. and N.B. was rigged. The only meetings held (and
there were lots of them), were on the various pipeline
companies terms of reference. I attended quite a number of
these meeting and any member of the public who ventured in
was swarmed by several company hacks. Such meetings involved
an afternoon and evening session, with lots of company
experts and what we call "biostitutes", consulting companies
giving the pipeline corporations the environmental
all-clear. There were no independently chaired public
meetings with different speakers on the merits of the Sable
gas project and with critical material available to the
public.


So the above is my take on what I see as some of the
main reasons why the project made it through the process so
easily. I am sending you the list of Green Web bulletins on
Sable gas and pipeline issues, in case there is anything
further you want. Also sending the Left Biocentric Primer
and Deep Ecology Platform which give a summary of the
ecocentric as opposed to anthropocentric, philosophical
orientation I and a few others have tried to bring in
opposition to the Sable gas project. 

Two people who took part in the formal hearings and who
would have some interesting comments would be Fred Hall and
David Wimberly. You can contact them by e-mail...

For the Earth, 
David Orton

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