Quote:
Originally Posted by Regorium
The problem with this is that people are talking about tanker safety and traffic, and pinning that on the pipeline company. People are talking about emissions in the oilsands and that's the pipeline's fault. People are talking about cheap heating for houses and people driving too much, and that's the pipeline's fault too.
My issue with a lot of these things is that pipelines are unfairly blamed for a lot of upstream/downstream effects (eg. the BC gov and the letter from all those professors). I don't see, for example, people protesting GM/Ford plants because every additional car on the road causes pollution! I don't see people protesting about tanker safety, more strict regulations on tanker certification and inspections or anything like that. It's all the pipeline's fault.
Somehow, pipelines became the symbol for which all of the world's problems can be blamed. As someone that has done a public consultation (KXL), it was unbelievable to me. I came to the consultation prepared with water crossing studies, soil studies, integrity studies and the like. Then someone asked me how we planned to deal with increased smog over cities from increased driving due to the pipeline.
That's the kind of stuff we have to deal with, so as a someone in pipelines, I think that kind of shows where we're coming from when we get cynical about "environmental issues".
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I think it's because people feel they have more control over the pipeline side of things. The idea is once the pipeline gets to the coast, the floodgates are open and then we're screwed with the tanker traffic. That's the mentality I'm picking up anyways. Wasn't the spot that NG picked in Kitimat considered to be particularly tricky for tankers to navigate?