The Right Route

Over the past four weeks the questioning directed at our hearing panel has, for the most part, focused on the environmental concerns of our local stakeholders. These queries have ranged from the potential impact on plants and native grassland, trout and trout habitat, wolves and grizzly bears – all good questions that our panel has worked to address. But the one topic that’s garnered the majority of interest has been the choice of our trunk line routing. How could a route that crosses a number of water courses in a region – one that has historically been dedicated solely to cattle grazing – be the right option. Couldn’t you put this pipeline somewhere else?
 
From what I’ve seen, selecting a route isn’t as easy as it may seem. What appears on the surface as the best option from an environmental perspective may not be the most practical or safe. What I can tell you is that Petro-Canada’s proposed Eden Valley (EV) route was chosen because it offered the best possible balance of environmental, land use, safety, construction and operational considerations.

 
In a Sullivan Development update [pdf file] – distributed locally in February 2008 – we spent some time detailing two options that have been suggested alternatives to what’s being proposed. The first would transport gas along the Highway 541/940 corridor to Petro-Canada’s Savanna Creek field and on to the Coleman Gas plant. The second is the Mazeppa corridor, taking the gas to the Mazeppa Gas Plant, east of High River. Both of these routes were found to have significant challenges – above and beyond our EV route proposal – that led us to what the Board is considering today.

In terms of the Highway 541/940 route:

• Provincial regulations and guideline restrict how close a sour gas pipeline can be placed to public highways, public facilities and waterways. So although intuitively it would make sense for a new pipeline to parallel an existing right-of-way to minimize environmental impact, in the consideration of public safety, this just can’t be done.

• Water course crossings have come up as a big area of local concern. It should be noted that the Highway 541/940 route involves more water crossings than the EV route, increasing the risk to water quality and fish habitat.

The biggest concern around the Mazeppa route is that it would impact more land and people than the EV route. Options for the Mazeppa trunk line range in length from 82 kms to 103 kms, compared to the 36.2 km EV line. The shortest of the options identified (82 kms) would cross 67 privately owned properties which would include 48 residences within 500 metres of the right-of-way. In terms of impact to local residences, the proposed EV route would be entirely on Crown land with no residences within 500 metres of the right-of-way. 

These are just a couple of key points. The February 2008 development plan [pdf file] covers these options in further detail.