Canada's Trans Mountain Pipeline Clears Hurdle Despite Fears For Seaway

"Regulator admits risks but recommends Trudeau government approve project to ramp up shipping of tar sands crude via Salish Sea tribal fishing grounds".

"Canada’s energy regulators have recommended the approval of the Trans Mountain oil sands pipeline, which has drawn environmental and tribal protests over the dramatic increase it would mean to the number of oil tankers moving through the waters between the US and Canada.

The National Energy Board recommended the federal government conditionally approve Kinder Morgan Canada’s plan to nearly triple pipeline capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of crude oil a day. The $5.4bn Trans Mountain project would carry oil from Alberta ’s oil sands to near Vancouver, British Columbia, to be loaded on to tankers for export to Asian and US markets. It would mean a sevenfold increase to shipping through the Salish Sea.

Important benefits of the project – including thousands of construction jobs, hundreds of long-term jobs and increased access to diverse markets for Canadian oil – outweighed the “residual burdens”, the energy board’s chief environment officer, Robert Steedman, said during a news conference."

The Associated Press had the story May 19, 2016.