Protect land ahead of pipeline, review panel told on last days of hearings
November 5, 2007 - 17:53
By: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS
In two years of hearings in 26 northern communities, a panel reviewing the potential environmental and social impacts of a $16-billion natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley took in enough submissions to block a herd of caribou.
The panel begins hearing final recommendations Tuesday and concerns registered by everyone from government scientists to aboriginal hunters have been remarkably consistent: protect special areas, prepare for a development boom, make sure climate change doesn't make the pipeline unsafe and monitor whatever changes it brings.
"A network of culturally and ecologically representative protected areas must be reserved prior to development," says a presentation from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
The Gwich'In Tribal Council, through whose land the 1,200-kilometre pipeline is slated to run, pleads for foresight in managing new energy exploration the pipeline would be likely to create.
"The Gwich'In Tribal Council recommends the proponent be required to collaborate ... to conduct a scenario-based cumulative effects assessment," the council's paper says.
Environment Canada is warning that polar bears and marine mammals such as beluga whales might suffer if a plan isn't created to deal with development caused by the pipeline.
"Managing the potential impacts of exploration and induced development is essential for achieving the sustainability of the ecological resources of the Beaufort Sea," reads the department's recommendation.
Those - and many, many others - are three of the recommendations the seven-member panel will have to consider.
Two dozen groups are scheduled to speak beginning Tuesday and going to Thursday. Their goal is to sum up the testimony of uncounted hours spent in community halls and meetings rooms from Sachs Harbour on Banks Island to the Alberta capital of Edmonton. Transcripts from the meetings run to hundreds of thousands of pages.
The stakes couldn't be higher.
On the one hand, pipeline supporters point to jobs and business opportunities the project would probably bring. The pipeline, by giving Arctic gas a route to southern markets, would undoubtedly open the entire valley and the Beaufort Sea offshore to energy development.
Others point to the damage the project could do to one of the earth's last great wildernesses. They also say the proliferation of new wells and feeder lines to keep the pipeline full would create a much heavier footprint on the North than the project's proponents like to admit.
There are other concerns.
Federal scientists worry that pipeline engineers haven't accounted for the effect that melting permafrost would have on the line's durability and safety.
Aboriginal groups such as the Deh Cho in the southern section of the route have already insisted that progress must be made on their land claim before any pipeline runs through their territory.
"The elders recommend delaying development of the proposed Mackenzie gas project and withholding any right for pipeline access to Deh Cho land until the Deh Cho process has been successfully concluded," says the elders council.
Environmentalists such as Chuck Birchall of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee say this week's hearings offer the last hope to convince the panel that the pipeline's future consequences - not just present impacts - must play a role in its decisions.
"You've got to do a proper cumulative effects assessment," he said. "If you don't do it for this project, when would you do it?"
After this week, the panel meets one more time at the end of the month to hear closing remarks. It is expected to deliver its report in mid-2008.
That report goes to the federal cabinet as well as other regulatory bodies, including the National Energy Board, which will incorporate the document into its ruling on whether the pipeline should be licensed to proceed.
http://www.570news.com/news/business/article.jsp?content=b1105124A
