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Hello members of "sust-mar", The message below may be of interest to some. It deals with my response to an inquiry from a university student concerning how the Sable gas project "made it through the environmental impact assessment so easily". David Orton > >Hello David, >I was told I might be able to get some >information from you on the pipeline project. > >I am writing a paper on how the project made it through the >environmental impact assessment so easily. > >I have a few of your articles, (Hearings not for listening, >Environmental Hearings and Existential Dielemmas: The Sable >Gas Project and the RTNAC). > >I was wondering if you could direct me to any other information >about problems you have seen throughout the process and why >these problems have been so easily ignored. > >Thank you for your time, > > Dear ___: Thanks for your e-mail about about the pipeline/Sable gas project. You raise an interesting topic for your paper, "how the project made it through the environmental impact assessment so easily." These are some reasons which come to my mind, and forgive my indulgence: 1. The National Energy Board which oversaw the environmental assessment process, incarnated in our region as "The Joint Public Review Panel", is in the business of promoting oil and gas sales. It is a facilitating agency for the fossil fuel industry with a continentalist, not nationalist perspective. In 1987, the NEB put foreign and domestic customers on an equal footing and abandoned the previous policy of national self-sufficiency in energy. Canada now exports more than 50 percent of the crude oil and natural gas it produces. The NEB basically accepts the assumptions of the industry, e.g. need for economic growth, continuing use of fossil fuels, and that Canada should supply the United States. The Panel, that is the judges, would be selected only if they shared these assumptions. So who picks the panel members and the world view they share, seems rather fundamental for the kind of questions asked and openmindedness of any formal review process. 2. The natural gas industry is new to the Maritimes. There is no local knowledge of the track record of the industry. So all of us had to start from zero knowledge and it took some time for those who worked at it, before we became familiar with what had gone on out West with this industry, the safety record of gas pipelines in Canada and elsewhere, or what had happened in the North Sea, etc. As well as finding out about this CRITICAL material, there was a massive information out-pouring from the offshore and onshore proponents, which set the parameters of discussion for the overall project. (As well as the information on the Sable gas project itself, there were three pipeline proposals, each with substantial documentation.) So the proponents of the pipeline project controlled the data base and the essential parameters of discussion. They were ably assisted by the local media, who never once for example, did any in depth reporting of those in fundamental opposition to the whole project and what their critique was. 3. I think the discussion about this project should really have started when the first exploration wells were drilled on the Scotian Shelf back in the 60s. There was no discussion that I can recall, within the environmental movement or by those in the scientific community who would have known. We had about nine wells drilled on Sable Island itself, and wells were drilled right up to the edge of the Gully, i.e. the Primrose Field. There were, according to the public material circulated, 125 test wells drilled in the N.S. offshore region. I found out that there were two well blow-outs in 1984 and one well took ten months to cap and abandon. If an oil company pays money for an offshore oil and gas exploratory lease, and then finds oil and gas, the assumption is that "development" can go ahead. So the basic discussion on whether or not there should be an oil and gas industry should take place before the rights to explore are handed out. I myself only became aware of what I mention here through researching the industry. I knew essentially nothing about oil and gas, or their past record when I first started looking into the industry in June of 1996, as part of helping to try and build an opposition. 4. The process for the formal hearings was designed for lawyers and professional lobbyists for the oil and gas industry and was extremely complex, bureaucratic and legalistic. One newspaper report said that on any one day at the formal hearings, there were about 65 lawyers present. Basically the hearings were run like a courtroom with sworn testimony, cross examination, continual lawyer interruptions, etc. Everyone stood up whenever the hearings panel entered or exited the hearings room. Only two known environmental groups boycotted this process, rural landowners and tenants in the Anti-Pipeline Group and the Green Web. Mainstream environmental groups, hunting and fishing organizations, aboriginal groups, entered the process. There was federal government money for participating in the process, if groups wanted to apply. As someone outside the process, I found there was no coordination or sharing of information by the groups who might be considered to some degree in opposition. Within the process the panel ruled on the legitimacy of topics. Thus the panel ruled for example, the end use of natural gas was an indoor air quality issue which was not within the scope of the Sable gas project; and the request for an independent environmental assessment of the overland pipeline was turned down. Those of us who boycotted, felt that by participating in such a rigged process, environmentalists conveyed legitimacy. The media focus was overwhelmingly on corporate concerns and infighting. 5. Most rural people who I worked with, came together from a "not-in-my-backyard" concern regarding the placing of the pipeline. This position is totally legitimate, as far I am concerned. The company made "concessions" to move the pipeline where members of the rural opposition were particularly public and vocal. These had the effect of some oppositional voices withdrawing, as the pipeline was moved out of their community, e.g. Glengarry in Pictou County, or off the land of a particular landowner/tenant. 6. The whole non-formal public "consulting" process in rural N.S. and N.B. was rigged. The only meetings held (and there were lots of them), were on the various pipeline companies terms of reference. I attended quite a number of these meeting and any member of the public who ventured in was swarmed by several company hacks. Such meetings involved an afternoon and evening session, with lots of company experts and what we call "biostitutes", consulting companies giving the pipeline corporations the environmental all-clear. There were no independently chaired public meetings with different speakers on the merits of the Sable gas project and with critical material available to the public. So the above is my take on what I see as some of the main reasons why the project made it through the process so easily. I am sending you the list of Green Web bulletins on Sable gas and pipeline issues, in case there is anything further you want. Also sending the Left Biocentric Primer and Deep Ecology Platform which give a summary of the ecocentric as opposed to anthropocentric, philosophical orientation I and a few others have tried to bring in opposition to the Sable gas project. Two people who took part in the formal hearings and who would have some interesting comments would be Fred Hall and David Wimberly. You can contact them by e-mail... For the Earth, David Orton
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