The #transmountain pipeline oil spill this weekend raises numerous questions about the safety of the existing pipe and the planned expansion THREAD/
Every company says "its contained and small" at the beginning of the oil spill. They are usually wrong. Drone footage is showing that its not contained to the facility, oil is spilling into a farmers field 2/
This oil spill is just above the Abbotsford Sumas aquifer where there are 19 public/city drinking water wells and numerous farm wells. It is also close to the Sumas River habitat for 5 species of salmon 3/
The existing pipeline is unsafe. In fact it has had 90 oil spills and 5 major ones since 2005. Expansion plans dramatically increase the risk of oil spills and no, the new proposed pipeline is not to replace the old leaky one. Its in addition too the old one. 4/
When Kinder Morgan sold this pipeline to the Federal government it admitted to the NEB that they had been deferring maintenance to cut costs and that there were many examples of exposed pipe etc. This oil spill may be the tip of ice berg. 5/
When expansion was planned many scientists filed concerns about safety of pipeline which would cross over 1000 streams & rivers & at least 28 aquifers. The City of Burnaby, Deputy Fire Marshall and former Kinder Morgan engineers expressed opposition and concern over safety 6/
All of the safety concerns by engineers, scientists, indigenous nations, City of Burnaby, City of Vancouver even the Province of BC were ignored by the Federal government when it bought the pipeline & continued to plan the expansion 7/
The Trans Mountain is an economic, environmental and safety boondoggle that was a political decision. Its time to press pause. The costs of the project have gone up 72% since proposed and the price of oil has plummeted. 8/
We need to stop dumping good money after bad. Trans Mountain expansion is less than 6% built. Indigenous Nations, municipal governments and more who are directly affected oppose the project. Let's use the $16B of tax payers money for the cleaner, safer world we want to build. 9/
We need an immediate third party investigation into this oil spill and the safety of the existing pipe. We also need a new economic and safety valuation on the expansion project. The world has changed and we need to change with it. #buildbackbetter
