Thursday, January 29, 2015

Kinder Morgan and National Energy Board Ignore Township's Concerns

Kinder Morgan has been working towards twinning its Trans Mountain Pipeline through BC. This proposed twinning has been highly controversial.

The Trans Mountain Pipeline goes right through Langley, and right under the highly populated community of Walnut Grove.

Kinder Morgan Proposed Pipeline and Township of Langley Affected Properties. Select map to enlarge.

The Township of Langley has concerns about the pipeline expansion as it will go through the community, and last year submitted various questions around 19 different areas of concern to the National Energy Board. The National Energy Board (NEB) will decided if the pipeline expansion can move forward.

The NEB only required Kinder Morgan to answer a few questions in one area of concern, emergency response around the proposed pipeline expansion. The NEB has repeatedly denied requests by the Township and others to get Kinder Morgan to answer further questions or address other areas of concern.

According to a recent Township of Langley staff report “the answers received from KMC during Round 1 Information phase of NEB’s intervenor process have not been satisfactory and the Township’s questions and concerns have not been fully addressed to date.”

A round 2 of information request to the NEB around the Trans Mountain Pipeline is about to begin. The Township of Langley plans to ask more questions, similar to the questions asked previously. Will the Township get a better response than last time? I wouldn’t hold my breath.

In the meantime, the public can email their questions and concerns to the Township of Langley at publicinput@tol.ca

On July 29th, the NEB will reveal if the pipeline expansion is approved.

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