BURLINGTON – Non-native residents of the Burlington area blocked an access road to an Enbridge Line 9 pipeline with intentions of holding that position for 12 hours – one hour for every 1000 anomalies discovered along the pipeline, which either has or is at risk of having a major oil spill. It was a 12-hour action Tuesday May 20, which went from 7am to 8pm.
“Enbridge calls these developments integrity digs,” said Danielle Boissineau, one of the blockaders, “but to anyone watching the Line 9 issue, it’s clear Enbridge has no integrity. This work on the line is just a Band-Aid, a flimsy patch over the most outrageous flaws in the Line 9 plan.” [She notes that a record of some of Enbridge’s false or misleading statements are available on the Enbridge Lies Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/1h8uYly]
“Line 9 has nearly 13,000 structural weaknesses along its length,” said Brian Sutherland, a Burlington resident. “And yet Enbridge is only doing a few hundred integrity digs. Enbridge has been denying the problems with the pipe for years, and they still refuse to do the hydrostatic testing requested by the province. Are we really supposed to trust Enbridge when they tell us that this time they’ll do it right?”
Despite the rain, Boissineau was pleased with the turnout.
“The event went very well,” she said. “There was a lot of attention raised and that was the point of the action, to let people know about the number of anomalies there are along the stretch of the pipeline.”
The group claims to have information that there are presently 12,961 dents, cracks or corrosions in the aging pipeline, which Enbridge wants to retrofit to run heavy bitumen oil from the Alberta oil sands. The plan is to run the highly corrosive oil in the opposite direction in a pipeline that was created to handle a much lighter grade of crude oil.
The location of the action was also important as it is adjacent to Bronte Creek, which is one of several fresh water streams that sustain aquatic life and feeds into Lake Ontario.
“The point of the action was to let people know that Line 9 does impose an imminent threat to our waterways,” said Boissineau.
A core group of around 20 people stayed the entire 12 hours but many more came in support and left, despite the rain.
Halton Police were present but did not interfere with the demonstration.
Many of the mainstream media were on hand to report the action to the broader audience. Enbridge employees were turned away by the protesters, which they accepted without incident.
Many of the blockaders point to the disastrous spill from Enbridge’s line 6b into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010, where millions of litres of oil spilled and have so far proven impossible to clean up. But many of them emphasize that their opposition to Line 9 goes beyond safety concerns.
“This is not about pipelines versus rail; it’s about the Tar Sands,” said Danielle Boissineau. “It’s the dirtiest oil in the world: it’s not worth the destruction it takes to produce, it’s not worth the risk to our watersheds to transport, and we definitely can’t afford the carbon in our atmosphere when it’s burned. At every step of the process, the Tar Sands outsources the risks onto our communities and poisons waterways like the Athabasca River and the Bronte creek while companies like Enbridge get rich.”
There is resistance planned throughout the summer despite the fact that Line 9 has been approved by the National Energy Board, and will be going ahead with or without public approval.
Boissineau says that there is no a specific follow up plans at the moment but once things are put in place, the media would know about it.
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Press Release
For Immediate Release
May 20 2014
Traditional Mississauga Territory (Burlington, Ontario)
“NO INTEGRITY. NO DIGS.”
A group of area residents have blockaded the access road to an exposed section of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline, beginning at 7am this morning. They say they will stay for at least twelve hours, one hour for every thousand anomalies Enbridge has reported to exist on the line. These community members turned away Enbridge employees who were scheduled to do work on Line 9 in preparation for it to carry toxic diluted bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands.
This particular work site is adjacent to the Bronte creek, a major waterway flowing to Lake Ontario, the water source for more than ten million people.
“Enbridge calls these developments integrity digs,” said Danielle Boissineau, one of the blockaders, “but to anyone watching the Line 9 issue, its clear Enbridge has no integrity. This work on the line is just a Band-Aid, a flimsy patch over the most outrageous flaws in the Line 9 plan.” [Danielle notes that a record of just some of Enbridge’s false or misleading statements is available on the Enbridge Lies facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Enbridge-Lies/192337394261155
“Line 9 has nearly 13,000 structural weaknesses along its length” said Brian Sutherland, a Burlington resident. “And yet Enbridge is only doing a few hundred integrity digs. Enbridge has been denying the problems with the pipe for years, and they still refuse to do the hydrostatic testing requested by the province. Are we really supposed to trust Enbridge when they tell us that this time they’ll do it right?”
Many of the blockaders point to the disastrous spill from Enbridge’s line 6b into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010, where millions of litres of oil spilled and have so far proven impossible to clean up. But many of them emphasize that their opposition to Line 9 goes beyond safety concerns.
“This is not about pipelines versus rail; it’s about the Tar Sands,” said Danielle Boissineau. “It’s the dirtiest oil in the world: it’s not worth the destruction it takes to produce, it’s not worth the risk to our watersheds to transport, and we definitely can’t afford the carbon in our atmosphere when it’s burned. At every step of the process, the Tar Sands outsources the risks onto our communities and poisons waterways like the Athabasca River and the Bronte creek while companies like Enbridge get rich.”
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