A $150 million oil spill response plan that would have seen seven new spill response bases built in B.C., along with 26 vessels and 115 personnel, was put in limbo last week as the company paying the bill announced it is halting all capital expenditures.
The bases were part of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline approval process, but the company is reassessing whether to proceed with that pipeline after receiving pushback from British Columbians and the provincial government.
“We’re not proceeding with any capital expenditures until there’s a decision made on the Trans Mountain side,” said Michael Lowry of Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, who Kinder Morgan hired to put the spill response plan together.
“We’ll be waiting just like everyone else to see how this whole thing unfolds. But, I will say that, if these enhancements don’t go ahead, I think this would be a significant loss for all these communities and for the West Coast. It was a very robust and comprehensive enhancement program and the coast won’t be getting that if this project doesn’t go ahead.”
He added that while Kinder Morgan was footing the bill, the project’s vessels, centres and staff would have responded to any type of spill.
Five of the project’s seven proposed response centres were slated for Vancouver Island. Nanaimo would have hosted a main hub and four smaller facilities were headed to Sidney, Beecher Bay, Port Alberni and Ucluelet.
WCMRC staff were in Ucluelet last month checking out moorage sites and investigating a possible storefront location. Lowry said talks with the town’s council were going well and open houses were in the works to bring the public up to speed on the local impacts of the project.
Ucluelet mayor Dianne St. Jacques said she was disappointed to see the plan halted.
“It’s super disappointing for sure, but I understand their perspective on it,” she said. “The oil companies were required to fund and set up these new response centres so, with the pipeline being in the disarray that it is at the moment, they are pulling back.”
St. Jacques suggested that if Kinder Morgan’s project doesn’t go ahead, the provincial and federal governments should complete the project’s funding.
“Even though it’s been approved and it’s jumped through all it’s hoops for ten years or more, if [Kinder Morgan] doesn’t move ahead at this point, then we need the province or the federal government or a combination of the two to step up and fund these things regardless and get these things set up our on our coast so they can protect our waters if need be,” she said.
Lowry said the WCMRC has not reached out to the provincial or federal governments seeking alternate funding.
“We haven’t gone down that route at this time,” he said.
St. Jacques suggested oil is a necessary commodity and she hopes to see the province and Kinder Morgan resolve their differences.
“If our lives didn’t depend on it the way it does, then I could understand. I certainly support protecting our environment 100 per cent and all the proper steps need to be taken in order to do that,” she said. “But, we are a society that cannot exist without oil and gas and plastics at this point in time, for medical equipment and everything else that it is used for. I think it behooves us to put in the effort to do it to the best level that we can and we can, we are capable of doing it properly and doing it well and so whatever work needs to be done to get us to that point, I fully support.”