Good morning. Welcome back to Smithers.
My name is Lynnda McDougall. I currently work at the Smithers Public
Library, but since I moved to the Bulkley Valley in 1971
I've been a substitute high school teacher,
a bookkeeper and a business owner. I spent 20 years of my career in
resource-based industries, through both boom and bust
times: first in forestry as a tree-planter, slasher/bucker and a stump to dump logging
contractor, then in mining exploration as an office manager/bookkeeper for a diamond
drilling firm. For 8 years, I worked
with First Nations at the Dze L k'ant Friendship Centre.
Throughout this length of time, and breadth of experience, I have never
encountered an issue that has united and galvanized the
people of the Pacific Northwest like the threat posed
to our livelihood and our very way of life by the Enbridge Northern
Gateway Pipeline.
I am not a scientist, but you will be
hearing from many of them, detailing the atrocious assault on our watersheds that a pipeline
rupture, or worse yet, an oil tanker spill would deliver.
I am not a scientist, but I am a mother and
grandmother and a 41 year resident of this wonderful region and when I look at the map
of the pipeline route , memories come flooding back – memories of activities and
places I had assumed I would share with my grandchildren, now under threat of
degradation and extinction: camping,
boating and trout fishing at Owen Lake – spill into the
Morice? GONE! Homesteading on the banks of the Bulkley River at Quick and Telkwa,
drawing drinking water in buckets from the river, summer and winter; swimming, tubing, rafting from Walcott to
Quick – NOT IN
BITUMEN POLLUTED WATER! Swimming lessons at Round Lake with my
daughter NOT A CHANCE! A family wedding on the beach at Grey Bay on
Haida Gwai? Black tar balls don't enhance white bridal gowns
and deformed, toxic seafood doesn't provide a delicious wedding dinner.
I am not an expert, but I do recall a
sudden storm in November of 1978 when hurricane force winds blew, and over 10 inches of
rain fell on Terrace and area in 2 days.
The resulting floods and mudslides devastated the entire NW: 44 washouts on HWY 16 between
Hazelton and Terrace alone, bridges gone; CN rail tracks, including a
train with 2 crew members from Smithers, swept
into the Skeena River; over 6000 acres
of timber blown down in the Chapman Lake area
alone and the PNG natural gas line ruptured in the Telkwa Pass cutting
off the primary heating source to Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert.
This incident is relevant today because it
highlights the difficulties in trying to repair infrastructure in rugged terrain, in poor
weather and with few transportation options. From Smithers to the west coast, we have
ONE road and ONE rail line. When these are impassable or compromised, the only
alternative is aircraft. Mountain flying
is hazardous at the best of times and
inclement weather simply makes it impossible.
In 1978 PNG repair crews were delayed,
first because of weather, and then by conditions as described by PNG's sales & service
manager of the Terrace district, John Low, in a news story:
“Unless the service is restored Wednesday, the area will find
itself without a major source of home heating. Low said the major break in the line occurs
about 26 miles upriver from Copper River Bridge on Highway 16. Twelve men - as
much as the site can hold - have been flown in by helicopter, and they face the task of
building a four inch bypass line 200 feet up a 70 degree slope, across 1000 to 1500
feet on top of the ridge, and back down the slope. Machinery has no access to the area, and
Low said the men are
doing all the work by hand. Two welding machines are the only
equipment being used on the site.”
It took more than a week to restore natural gas service to tens of
thousands of people,and a full two years to rebuild the roads, bridges and rails to
the previous state.
These are the conditions facing anyone trying to repair an oil
pipeline leak, and then it won't be natural gas dissipating into the air, but heavy, toxic
bitumen poisoning our waterways, killing our fish and destroying our environment.
We Northerners are a sceptical lot.
We have seen the results of projects built
by those who don't live here or understand the realities of our climate and
geography: the beautiful buildings designed
by southern architects that are cold and draughty and leak, the mega projects that
flood our farmland and dislocate our First Nations.
We don't believe Enbridge's empty promises
and smooth assurances – we've talked to the people affected by Enbridge's 2010
spill along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and heard about the slow initial
response, subsequent denial of compensation, the reprehensible treatment of
claimants and the continued ruination of sections of the river.
We know that under Canadian law, the total
liability to Enbridge for an oil tanker spill is a paltry $40 million – the BC
taxpayer will be paying the rest of the billions required.
We don't believe the Harper government's
argument that this project is in the national interest- at least not OUR
nation. China will make out very nicely!
Greedy Oil producers, many of them foreign owned and controlled, will reap
record profits to be shipped offshore along with the bitumen and Canadian
jobs.
The Harper government would have us believe
we need the revenue generated by Northern Gateway to pay for our social
programs, but we know that eliminating the billions of dollars in taxpayer
subsidies to already profitable oil companies would provide that funding.
We are astonished anew, each day, as the
Harper Government announces proposed changes to laws that will strip us of our
environmental protection and regulatory review processes, including that of this very
panel. We urge, no we implore you, as
the people of conscience we hope you to be, to join
the people of Northern BC in condemning this project.
I am a Northerner, by choice and by
temperament. Northerners can be fiercely proud, independent, resilient, responsible, rowdy
and resourceful. We have our differences
and divisions, but in the face of a common and
pervasive threat we will work together to defeat this project. We love this country, it is our home, and we
will protect it. We will become the radicals the Harper government
accuses us of being: radically informed and radically involved. WE WILL
STOP THIS PIPELINE!!
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