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Pipeline hearings underway
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DELYNDA PILON
DELYNDA PILON
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Several possible geo-technical hazards that were not listed on the maps compiled by Enbridge within its geo-hazard assessment report were pointed out during the first day of the Joint Review Panel hearings in Prince George. Elizabeth Graff, one of the counsel members representing the Province of British Columbia, grilled Drummond Cavers, an Enbridge geo-technical engineer accepted as one of the company’s expert witnesses, beginning with questions surrounding a surficial geology map, however Cavers said he couldn’t comment on that specific map without further information about it. The map was among the 540 pages of documents given to the witnesses by the province on Friday. “The proponent should not be able to split witnesses between expert panels,” Graff said when she was told the map wasn’t one Cavers was familiar with, and in fact questions surrounding it might be better addressed by someone else. Graff was informed Cavers was the expert witness available to discuss geo-technical hazards, though there was some confusion about the specific map she was asking about. Cavers explained some of the methodology used to create the geo-hazard assessment report. “Surficial information is covered in a variety of ways,” he said. Several tools, he said, were used to finish the compiled report, some of which weren’t available when the project began. Graff went on to ask questions about specific areas along the pipeline where
Whether or not seismic activity could jeopardize the safety of the Northern Gateway pipeline was at the root of many of the questions put to the Enbridge experts during the cross examination Wednesday at the Joint Review Panel hearings in Prince George. Murray Minchin with the Douglas Channel Watch, a group intent on protecting the environment of the Douglas Channel and the Kitimat valley, also brought up the potential for a major oil spill if the leak went undetected by the automated system that will be used to monitor the level of oil going through the pipeline. “If there’s a leak at 50,000 litres per hour, which would be 2,000 litres per hour below the 1.5 per cent, I believe, of nominal flow, so if the pipeline is spilling that amount of diluted bitumen for 24 hours, because it’s below the threshold (which would be detected by the computational pipeline monitoring system), wouldn’t that be 1.2 million litres per day spilled?” Minchin asked. Though Drummond Cavers, an expert witness for Enbridge, agreed the math Minchin used was correct, the conclusion he came to was in error because it was based on an assumption that the automated system was the only one Enbridge uses to detects leaks. Because of overlapping methods, he said, the leak would not go undetected for a 24-hour period. “You’re assuming that the material balance system, or what we call our computational pipeline monitoring system, is the only form of leak detec-
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D e Ly nd a PILON/ Fre e Pre s s
Carrier Sekani Tribal Chief Terry Teegee leads the protest outside the Joint Review turn to PAGE A5 Panel hearings into Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline Tuesday.
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