By Deirdre Fulton
The pipeline giant TransCanada, stymied
in its attempt to drive Keystone XL through America's heartland, is facing renewed
opposition to its "new and equally misguided proposal" to build the Energy East
pipeline across Canada and ship tar sands oil via
tankers along the U.S. East Coast to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.
In partnership with a number
of Canadian and U.S. environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC)—a major player in the fight to defeat Keystone XL—on Tuesday
released a report outlining how Energy East would
"effectively create a waterborne tar sands pipeline with hundreds of new
oil tankers traversing the Atlantic coastline, making vast areas of the Eastern
Seaboard vulnerable to a dangerous tar sands spill."
Indeed, the group notes that
the Gulf of Maine, Acadia National Park and the Florida Keys are all in the
pipeline's "crosshairs," as well as iconic marine species and billion
dollar commercial fisheries on the East Coast, including New England and
Atlantic Canada's lobster and sea scallops fisheries.
And that's on top of the
pipeline's climate impacts. According to the NRDC analysis, Energy East would bring a
significant increase in carbon pollution—equivalent to the annual emissions of
as many as 54 million passenger vehicles—and lock in high-carbon infrastructure
expected to operate for at least 50 years.
"TransCanada's Energy
East proposal is truly Keystone XL on steroids," said Joshua Axelrod, a
co-author of the report and NRDC policy analyst. "It's all risk and no
reward for millions of Canadians and Americans, iconic landscapes, valuable
fisheries and our climate."
With the report, Tar Sands in the Atlantic Ocean: TransCanada's Proposed Energy
East Pipeline , the NRDC joins a chorus of existing Energy East opponents.
The project is currently under consideration by the National Energy Board
(NEB), with hearings expected to begin in Saint John, New Brunswick, on August
8.
In making its argument, the
NRDC leans on a 2016 study by Canada's National Academy of Sciences (NAS),
which found that large portions of diluted bitumen—which Energy East would transport—can
be expected to sink if spilled in water. The same report found that current
regulations and spill response techniques are incapable of managing the unique
behavior and higher risks of tar sands diluted bitumen spill in water.
A press statement from Greenpeace Canada notes that the NEB
refused to consider the same NAS study in its Kinder Morgan pipeline analysis.
"To be at all credible,
the National Energy Board must give the NAS study a central role in its review
of Energy East," said Matt Abbott of the Conservation Council of New
Brunswick.
Meanwhile, the NRDC is calling for a tar sands oil tanker moratorium in U.S. and
Canadian waters until appropriate spill response techniques are developed to
address a diluted bitumen spill into water.
But beyond that, many say the
pipeline simply should not be built. Pointing to the devastating pipeline leak that flooded the North
Saskatchewan River with 200,000 liters of tar sands crude last week, the
Council of Canadians on Monday warned that spills are "inevitable and permanent
consequences of transporting oil."
"When thinking about the
future we want, let us remember that the proposed Energy East pipeline crosses
90 watersheds, nearly 3,000 waterways and puts the drinking water of over 5
million people at risk along its route," wrote energy and climate justice
campaigner Daniel Cayley-Daoust.
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