Rancher speaks out against pipeline
Ian Hickman, 60, is a busy rancher who raises cattle and grows hay on his Kellogg Creek property 25 miles west of Prince George.
His hard work is done around the clock and Hickman has no time to mince words. So he can perhaps be forgiven if he uses blunt terms to describe things he’s heard – and disregards – at public information meetings on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project.
The proposed $5.5 billion, 1172 km. twin pipeline would move bitumen from Bruderheim, Alberta (near Edmonton) to Kitimat B.C. where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to markets in the U.S. and Canada. The plan has its share of critics and naysayers but Hickman is perhaps one of its more vocal opponents.
He’s also one of the more knowledgeable about the historical and present day lay of the land. Further, he cites his own reasons why plans to construct a pipeline to push petroleum along the proposed northern route are flawed and could have disastrous consequences.
Hickman has two main concerns: Ground instability in the vicinity of the proposed route route and how any significant breaks in the pipeline resulting in oil leaks could be fixed before damage was done to the environment.
“The ground is always shifting in the wetlands which comprises most of the northern part of the province,” he said. “There’s water all over that country. In the 70s there was an earthquake in the upper Kitimat watershed ... it’s very unstable.”
For over 40 years, Hickman has lived in and traveled all around northern B.C.
“I’ve packed horses and guided all around the region. I know the area where the pipeline is supposed to go through. I’m not highly educated – I quit school to work at age 14 – but I know this land and my opinion is, it is not suitable for this kind of project.”
His reasons for opposing the project are as much about the future as the present.
“The water in northern B.C. is pristine. I would like it to be that way for my grandchildren and future generations. Enbridge has told us they can respond quickly to a line break and clean up an oil spill should it occur. I doubt that.”
Asked about plans for safety shut-off valves designed to contain any leaks, Hickman remains unconvinced. He’s aware the pipeline is buried deep, he said.
“If the break happens and oil flows, it is impossible to clean up the rivers. For example, once oil enters the Kitimat River, it’s too late to do anything about it because the river runs too fast.”
Hickman says he watched a video put out by Enbridge which shows footage that makes him shake his head in disbelief.
“It’s on how an Enbridge emergency response team would handle a spill. They take a little power saw, cut a six to seven-foot hole in the ice and then they lay down a boom to catch the oil – it looks like a little paddlewheeler.
“It might work if the ice was not several feet deep in ice blocks and most winters in Kitimat, there can be 10 feet of snow on top of that.”
Hickman says he questioned Enbridge representatives about the impact of the project on the environment last year at a public information hearing in Fort St. James.
“They had an earthquake in the 70s that created 70-foot tidal waves into the channel. The waves came in with such force they crushed a warehouse – with my dad’s boat in it. In the 60s when a mountain side came down it caused a landslide at Lake Else between Terrace and Kitimat.”
Hickman agrees he was probably a “prickly thorn” in the side of Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proponents when he went to past meetings in Vanderhoof and Prince George and asked lots of questions.
As for the several hundred jobs the Enbridge project may create, Hickman thinks the employment benefit to British Columbians would be minimal.
“Most of the jobs will come in the installation phase, laying down pipeline. Once it’s up and running, the project would have only a handful of jobs for B.C. people.”
Hickman says he registered to give an oral presentation during the next phase of public input (likely in March) and says he’s not done speaking his mind.
“This land and what happens to it is so important to our future generations. I feel I owe it to them to at least speak up before it’s too late.”
Enbridge spokesperson Paul Stanway said Monday the precise purpose of the public meetings is to address any concerns people may have about the pipeline project. He was at the Fort St. James informational meeting and recalls what Hickman had to say.
“He did have a conversation with one of our geotechnical experts – which is the purpose of these meetings, to try and get across the information. “
However, while Stanway says Enbridge invites questions and does its best to allay any fears and concerns, he disagrees that Hickman raises any new or valid points.
“We’ve now spent a number of years doing detailed geotechnical studies along the pipeline route. We feel we understand the reality of the landscape along the route very well. We’ve looked at it from all angles. The route has been planned to avoid any geotechnical issues.”
He gave examples of places along the pipeline’s path where their research resulted in taking measures to ensure they found the safest possible route.
“In some areas we’ve moved it a significant distance. In others we’re actually (planning on) building tunnels under a couple of mountains on the Coast range ... to specifically avoid these sorts of geotechnical issues.”
His own view is that, to date, the public meetings have gone well.
“We feel we’ve got good answers to the questions posed so far. We take people’s concerns very seriously and when they come to us with their concerns...we listen. And we attempt to find the information people are looking for.”
He said the video referenced by Hickman is of another area entirely and shows only an example of the sort of responses that are possible.
“Again, we feel that we’ve got good responses to anything that can happen along the proposed route. The sort of scenario that he (Hickman) sketches out would not happen. We’d be able to prevent that from happening.”
Other people have expressed similar concerns, he said.
“We’ve looked at the issues that he (Hickman) raised...these are issues that we’ve looked at long and hard. There would be no advantage to Enbridge in building a pipeline in an unsafe manner. Why on earth would we do that.? This is a business that we’ve been in for many decades.
“We understand the business and the best way of approaching these things – obviously from Enbridge’s point of view – is to build and operate a pipeline in as safe a manner as possible. And everything we do in the planning stages is to get towards that .”
Stanway said that Enbridge encourages dialogue.
“We are in the middle of very open and rigourous public review process and that process is designed to test all our assurances in detail, and in public and we’ve always felt the more people who hear about Enbridge... and our proposed project, the more comfortable they will be with it.”
To learn more about the Enbridge project visit www.northerngateway.ca. The website has a short video on measures Enbridge intends to make to mitigate environmental risks and ensure pipeline integrity.
Public information meetings on the proposed Enbridge pipeline plan are being held in Prince George today (Wednesday) at the Ramada Hotel starting at 6 p.m.
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