Protesters under injunction protecting Burnaby Mountain conservation area from Kinder Morgan Pipeline Co.
Protectors of Burnaby Mountain vs. Kinders Morgan: Dozens Arrested as Inspiring Pipeline Protest Grows
Standing on side of campaigners, local mayor vows to wage 'war' against fossil fuel giant and federal government to defend community
Ongoing protests in British Columbia to stop a tar sands pipeline project by fossil fuel giant Kinder Morgan escalated on Thursday night after 26 protesters were violently arrested.
Those arrested also included protesters who refused to comply with an injunction issued earlier in the week ordering them to move from their encampment on the mountain.
In response, Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan promised that he was ready to fight a "war" in the courts with the federal government.
"This is going to be a war, and it’s going to be one that carries on for a number of years,” Corrigan told the Province. "The bigger argument that needs to be fought is: How much can the federal government impose its will on local governments and the ability of people to make local decisions? That’s really the quintessential issue that takes this beyond a merely local situation to being one that attracts interest from municipalities right across Canada."
In June, an independent poll found that more than 60 percent of Burnaby residents oppose Kinder Morgan's development proposal to invest $5.4 billion into expanding an existing tar sands pipeline and storage terminal—which the city says would lead to seven times as many oil tankers using the nearby Burrard Inlet each year.
Kinder Morgan's pipeline system in the USA and Canada
The blue line is the Canadian pipeline to Alberta, the magenta line is the Trans-Mountain pipeline for dilbit coming from the Tar Sands to Burnaby to be shipped out of Port Vancouver BC. Kinder Morgan is twinning an existing pipeline. It will pass about two blocks from my son's home in the exurbs of Vancouver.
Try to follow the timeline of this event. I think it might stand as an example of what protestors will be up against in the future. Protestors fighting to protect their city and their conservation park from a foreign owned pipeline company. The company gets a court order against the protestors even though the judge in the case had a precedent to refuse such an order. The protestors have been "slapped" with a $5mn fine for blocking the KM surveyors.
KM got all their employees to carry cameras, video and still, so the protestors made ugly faces for the cameras. KM's lawyer argued that the faces represented threats of violence and that standing in the way of equipment was a violent act. He has never heard of passive resistance, I guess.
It all began with the pipeline company sending in a survey team who were only going to investigate the feasibility of boring a tunnel through the mountain. That survey trip included laying groundwork for helicopter landings and the clear cutting of 13 - 25' trees, damaging swaths of undergrowth all in a conservation area of Burnaby, BC, a suburb of Vancouver BC. KM wants to get the pipeline through the mountain to get to Burrard inlet and Port of Vancouver to ship the Tar Sands dilbit to Asian markets.
I will add more as I learn more. If I get time, I will write a diary with a time line. It's a very interesting case.
UPDATE: David Suzuki's grandson is led away in handcuffs.
UPDATE from The Vancouver Sun
5 things to know about the Kinder Morgan pipeline protest in Burnaby [British Columbia, Canada]
UPDATE from The Vancouver Province
Kinder Morgan overplaying benefits of proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion: study
UPDATEFrom The Globe & Mail
First Nations join pipeline protest in B.C. amid more arrests
Images of Burnaby Mountain conservation area
Protector of Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area