There were celebrations on Burnaby Mountain today when the RCMP informed protest organizers around 10:00am that Kinder Morgan had decided to leave the mountain and would do so immediately. By the time that Karen Mahon, a veteran of the Clayoquot Sound protests and one of Wednesday's arrestees, was able to stand up in front of the sizeable crowd assembled for the day's events at the beginning of Centennial Drive and declare that "this is the beginning of victory weekend on Burnaby Mountain," helicopters could already be spotted overhead flying out Trans Mountain pipeline equipment from the last remaining drill site on the hill. Yet as activists are aware, even if there was a clear sense of victory on the hill today, the war is far from won, and there is still uncertainty about the future of Burnaby's ongoing conflict with the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Valerie Langer, one of the leaders of the historic Clayoquot Sound blockade who was also arrested last Wednesday for crossing police lines, spoke to the Vancouver Observer about this sudden development in the ongoing protests against Kinder Morgan on Burnaby Mountain.
"It's victory day," she said, laughing with excitement. "It ended as a good day yesterday, and then we arrived here in the morning and the RCMP basically said Kinder Morgan gave up, they didn't get their extension, they can't finish the work they started to do and there's no point facing off. So they removed their drill machinery this morning. As we were speaking down at the rally at 10:30am they were pulling equipment out."
Trans Mountain sent out a tweet around 11.30am confirming that they had begun packing up and were set to leave the mountain:
Our crews are removing equipment & supplies by helicopter from the remaining work site on #BurnabyMountain pic.twitter.com/GWllYyiCzW
— Trans Mountain (@TransMtn) November 28, 2014
Langer was conscious that other victories will be needed to succeed in stopping pipeline expansion in British Columbia and Canada completely, noting that "this is just one battle, and there are still a lot of other battles to come. Not just on this pipeline, but Energy East and the Enbridge pipeline." She was positive about the overall picture, however, suggesting that "we are feeling a turning of the tide," where the public response to "the first shovel in the ground on the survey of this mountain was representative of what people will do at any point that companies decide they have the legal license and the people decide that they don't have the social license."
3-months-old Sam Salomon-Storr and his mother Anne Salomon, an Assistant Professor at the SFU School of Resource and Environmental Management.
Activists started to feel that the tide was shifting yesterday when Justice Austin Cullen rejected all of the Kinder Morgan civil contempt charges and refused to extend the date on the Kinder Morgan injunction. Today offered yet more hope to those attending protests on the hill that Kinder Morgan will not succeed in running a second pipeline through Burnaby Mountain.
Kinder Morgan obtains "sufficient level of information"
As Valerie Langer alluded to, though, further protest will likely be needed to halt Trans Mountain pipeline progress on Burnaby Mountain once and for all. In a November 27th press release, where they acknowledged that they were "not able to complete the work at one of the two borehole locations" on Burnaby Mountain because of the BC Supreme Court's refusal to extend the injunction, Trans Mountain stated:
"We believe we have been able to obtain a sufficient level of information from geotechnical, geophysical and engineering studies already completed, including data gathered from the completed test holes, to meet the National Energy Board’s information requirements for the December 1 filing; however ultimately this will be up to the NEB to determine."
Although Kinder Morgan is no longer drilling on Burnaby Mountain and has begun the process of leaving the hill, the information they did secure through completed survey work may very well will satisfy the NEB's demands for further information about the proposed pipeline route through Burnaby Mountain. If this proves to be the case, pressure from protesters and a key decision in the BC Supreme Court will have pushed Kinder Morgan off of Burnaby Mountain earlier than the company would have liked, but advance crews for Trans Mountain could soon be back on the hill preparing the way for their proposed pipeline.
MP Kennedy Stewart doubts Kinder Morgan got what they needed
Doubt remains as to whether Kinder Morgan did indeed gain all of the data it will need to meet the NEB's information requirements, however. Kennedy Stewart, MP for Burnaby-Douglas, was present on Burnaby Mountain today to talk with protesters and constituents. He told the Vancouver Observer that it "doesn't look like they got the testing done that they needed to get done," and said that as a result he "doesn't know what will happen at the National Energy Board."
Interveners will have until 10 February 2015 to review and respond to the findings that Kinder Morgan presents to the NEB on Monday. Kennedy Stewart proposed that as such it was now a "job for those who are intervening to really question the information" that Kinder Morgan acquired through their work on Burnaby Mountain and establish "whether it is sufficient for what they need."
"I suspect it probably isn't," Stewart said.
When asked to comment further on Kinder Morgan's decision to stop drilling and leave the mountain Stewart said "I think we have a good resolution here. The mood is a lot lighter today."
"I was relieved actually," he continued, because "there's been a lot of stress on local residents and local police. I said that to the company in a statement in the House of Commons, that I wanted them to stop, because it was really tearing our community apart. The local constables protect us, then all of a sudden they have to arrest us. That's the fault of the company — the company forced them into this position."
Public scrutiny now looks set to shift to the National Energy Board's response to Kinder Morgan's filing on Monday, especially given what Stewart sees as the broader impact of the Burnaby Mountain protests. "This has changed things a bit," he said, suggesting that because Kinder Morgan has shown "utter disregard for the local community, people are going to be standing back and saying: 'do I even believe in the National Energy Board process anymore? Is it even worth participating in?'"
"Maybe the National Energy Board even has to look at themselves and say, 'is this really even feasible? Can you approve a five billion dollar project in eighteen months with very, very little public input?'"
As for Kinder Morgan, Stewart thinks "the people here would say 'don't come back.'"
A series of events has been organized by protesters to mark "victory weekend on Burnaby Mountain." They are encouraging people to come to the mountain and join in a variety of discussions, festivities and workshops, including an event on Saturday morning where mothers and children will have a chance to speak out for environmental and social justice, performances by Indigenous peoples and people of color and a dance party on Sunday afternoon.
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