Last weekend, a local Inuvialuit from Aklavik, named Jojo, helped guide us north through the delta to the Arctic Ocean, in search of Kendall Island Bird Sanctuary, the proposed starting point of the Mackenzie pipeline (http://www.mackenziegasproject.com/theProject/projectDescription/naturalGasFields/Taglu/Taglu.html). As this video demonstrates, we experienced some difficulties. Ironically, the 8 hours we spent manually shoving our boat over a delta flat provided us with a prolonged view of Shell's proposed drilling station, Niglintgak, the smallest of the three proposed anchor fields (of the three--owned by Shell, Imperial (ExxonMobil), and CononcoPhilips--two are located in the Bird Sanctuary). The drilling will require significant dredging of this area (the reasons for which will be made clear by the video)...
From an initial proposal I wrote for an environmental journalism fellowship which I didn't receive (but nevertheless provides some facts and information on the Mackenzie Gas Project:
Given the amount of attention the war in Iraq has placed on oil reserves in the Middle East, it’s not surprising that Canada escapes our petro-radar. But our friendly northern neighbor is by far the U.S.’s largest supplier of foreign oil, providing nearly 20% of total imported petroleum, as well as 92% of imported natural gas, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Energy. And those figures may be set to increase dramatically in the near future, seeing as one quarter of the world’s oil and gas reserves sit underneath the arctic sea ice. As this ice continues to melt at an alarming rate, rendering the fabled Northwest Passage a soon-to-be viable trading route, the Arctic’s untapped oil and gas reserves may soon appear antidotal to the current energy crisis. After decades of negotiations, the energy industry’s recurring dream of building a pipeline that would link the arctic oil reserves to southern markets may become a reality. The Mackenzie Gas Project (MGP), a joint proposal advanced by Imperial Oil (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil), ConocoPhillips, Shell, and the Aboriginal Pipeline Group (APG) seeks with renewed force to establish natural gas fields, gathering lines, and processing facilities in the Mackenzie River Delta, as well as a transportation pipeline that would shadow the Mackenzie River 1100 miles to its southern source in the Canadian Rockies*. The proposed pipeline would eventually link up with the existing oil distribution system in northern Alberta, causing some environmentalists to fear its connection with the Alberta tar sands—massive deposits estimated to contain 1.7 trillion barrels of oil, according to the Canadian government. Alberta tar sands production increased to 1.126 million barrels per day in 2006; the Mackenzie Valley pipeline is estimated to increase this number five-fold. The proposal, as of now, is pending approval by the Minister of the Environment*. Pipeline construction could be underway as early as 2009.
One of the few remaining pristine watersheds in the world, the Mackenzie River is the second longest river in North America and the fifth longest in the world. Largely without roads, settlements, and cell phone coverage of any sort, the watershed claims a vast stretch of North America’s Boreal Forest. It remains, in its current condition, the world’s largest land ecosystem. Home to woodland and barren ground caribou, grizzly bear, moose, wolves, and lynx, it also acts as breeding grounds for 80% of the waterfowl species of North America, according to the Boreal Songbird Initiative. Furthermore, First Nations, including the Gwich’in, the Sahtu, the Akaitcho, Tli Cho and the Deh Cho, claim distinct regions throughout the valley, a fact that has complicated land-access issues since the project was first proposed back in the early 70s.
If approved, the pipeline will be the largest industrial project the Northwest Territories has ever seen, and will finally connect Canadian arctic gas and oil reserves to southern markets, granting access to a new frontier of natural resources. Suffice it to say the project would unequivocally transform the Arctic North.
What I find compelling about the MGP—beyond the sheer impact it would have on the Northwest Territories’ fragile environment—is that the project is coming to fruition thanks to a partnership struck between Big Oil and First Nations groups. A product of forty years’ worth of dialogue and contention, the Aboriginal Pipeline Group (APG), formed in 2000, would share resource revenues and administrative powers, claiming ownership of a third of the transportation pipeline. As of today, the four principle First Nations groups set to gain from the project’s approval—the Sahtu, Gwich’in, Inuvialuit, and Deh Cho—have all agreed to the terms under which the MGP would proceed (until May 2008, the Deh Cho, under its former leadership, had held out for several years)**.
What will the environmental impacts of such a large-scale enterprise be? How will sea-life accommodate barges and drill rigs? In what ways will bird habitat alter in the Boreal? Into what metamorphose the subsistence economies? How will the narratives of the region change? Not surprisingly, the MGP has spurred a great deal of opposition from groups such as the Sierra Club-Canada, Nature Canada, and Ecology North. In 2004, in conjunction with the Inuit Game Council, the Canadian Minister of the Environment sponsored a study of the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the proposed pipeline. The appointed Joint Review Panel (JRP), an independent body consisting of seven members, adopted a unique “made-in-the-North” process that, among other things, held a series of public hearings throughout the Mackenzie River Valley over the course of two years (from February, 2006 to November, 2007), bearing witness to a smorgasbord of politico-regional perspectives***. Their final report, which could lead the way to the first steps in the pipeline permitting process, could be released as early as this summer****.
With the arctic ice melting at an unprecedented rate and demand for oil at an all time high, the Canadian Arctic’s cold dark secret should prepare itself for worldwide disclosure. According to geological surveys conducted by the Canadian Energy Board, close to 12 trillion barrels of oil lie in waiting. The thought alone makes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge look like a drop in the bucket....
*As well as a somewhat smaller liquid natural gas pipeline that would run from Inuvik to Norman Wells, and from there hooking into the Enbridge oil pipeline that runs south to Alberta.
**As per our conversation with the Imperial Inuvialuit representative in Inuvik, the Deh Cho continue to "pull back" from negotiations...as it stands today, they have yet to sign on officially to APG.
***To read through the 11,000 pages of public testimony (the most long-winded assessment in Canadian history, go to: http://www.ngps.nt.ca/transcripts_e.html
**** Actually, the JRP has announced that the report has been delayed, and will most likely not be completed until early 2009. To read the press release, go to: http://oilsandstruth.org/regulatory-delay-hits-pipeline
No comments:
Post a Comment