The People versus the Tar Sands Pipeline
The People versus the Tar Sands Pipeline
In a sense, we are all for the reversal of Enbridge line 9: this decades-old pipeline should be phased out.
But Enbridge plans to reverse the flow of a pipeline built in 1975 to bring corrosive tar sands through Ontario, from Alberta. The company also plans to increase the flow through this pipeline to more than 160% of the current number of barrels per day.
As a result, there would be far more of a risk of a rupture that would pour tar sands into the Great Lakes. Numerous waters and lands are threatened by this pipeline.
The company is attempting to proceed with their plans for line 9 without the free, prior, and informed consent of all of the peoples who are threatened. These plans cut across the Haldimand land tract -- without Six Nations consent, and in violation of a series of treaties.
Enbridge also has announced that they will extend the eastward pipeline flow beyond Ontario, into Québec. However, the company is not revealing details about where they might bring the oil and tar sands from there, so we only can assume that the company is reviving their "Trailbreaker" project, to bring tar sands into the United States, to the coast of Maine.
This line 9 project is one segment of much wider plans for tar sands expansion across North America, and across our oceans. Putting additional tar sands pipelines in place also allows for devastating tar sands extraction to increase more rapidly, and toxic emissions are dramatically increasing around the refineries which process tar sands. To halt or turn around this rapid destruction, we should be reversing tar sands projects.
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