After a week in which nearly 100 opponents have been arrested at the Kinder Morgan construction site on Burnaby Mountain, and with organizers gearing up for dozens of local actions across the country and a likely 100 or more arrests tomorrow, VICE News is out this morning with an analysis of the protests so far—and the impact they may be having on the Houston-based pipeliner’s bottom line.
“Today, elected MP for Burnaby South Kennedy Stewart will join dozens of self-described land defenders attempting to delay and discredit the C$7.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in hopes the project will never be completed,” VICE notes. “Since Saturday, we’ve seen an average of 15 Kinder Morgan opponents arrested every day around the Texas oil giant’s Burnaby worksite, and the choreography of it all has been striking. For each protester who has zip-tied themself to a gate or climbed on top of an excavator, cops have trotted out an exceptionally defensive strategy—reading court documents aloud, laying out legal options, in some cases negotiating for hours, and even ensuring post-arrest care for First Nations’ drums and other ceremonial items. When a grandpa built himself a hammock high up in some trees inside the construction area on Monday, Burnaby police waited until the cover of night to extract him—an apparent play to avoid photos of the struggle.”
The protests themselves have been epic, including ex-Trans Mountain engineer Romilly Cavanaugh, 70-year-old grandfather and former Juno award nominee Terry Christenson, Greenpeace founder Rex Weyler, two former opera singers, and the woman who saw nine people arrested, picked up her chair, carried it into the injunction zone, sat down, and started knitting.
“I’m a little apprehensive about being arrested,” retired Montessori teacher Jeanette Paisley, 76, said last week, as the latest phase of protests was getting under way. “I’ve been a law-abiding citizen all my life. I’ve rarely had a speeding ticket. But I am appalled at Kinder Morgan and I’m very disappointed with [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau. I decided it’s time to do something. I’ve signed petitions all my life, but when I heard about this, I decided it was time I got off my duff and did something.”
Citing a Vancouver Sun report last month, Coast Protectors notes that “one-in-ten British Columbians, and one-in-four opponents of Kinder Morgan’s new pipeline in British Columbia, say they would be willing to take peaceful civil disobedience to resist the pipeline.”
Last week, as well, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee said he was “allied” with B.C. in questioning whether the Trans Mountain expansion should proceed.
VICE says it’s no mistake opponents of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion have escalated the fight this week. The timing was driven in part by the National Energy Board’s decision last month to overrule city authority and allow construction on Burnaby Mountain to proceed. But the defenders are also trying to “delay construction and scare off would-be investors leading up to March 26, when migratory bird protection laws may stop the company from clearing trees and other construction work until August,” notes reporter Sarah Berman. “Their latest twist on this theme was to go out and plant new cedar trees around the property Thursday, ‘to leave the place better than when we found it.’”
The net result for Kinder Morgan is a need to tell conflicting stories to shareholders and the courts. “In court documents earlier this month, the company claimed $89 million in lost revenue for every month the project is delayed, as well as hundreds of thousands more for weekly security, staff, and equipment costs,” VICE notes. But “these figures came a little more than a week after the company assured investors in Toronto that it has secured 708,000 barrels per day worth of ‘contracted capacity’ once the project is complete. While the presentation acknowledged several hurdles that could delay the project up to 12 months, the price of those delays wasn’t spelled out for financial backers.”
“They’re between rock and hard place,” said Hadi Dowlatabadi, a UBC professor who studies global markets and resources. “In the court filings they’re really saying, ‘this is hurting us.’ And to shareholders they’re saying, ‘Oh no, we’re fine.’” After factoring in Kinder’s “lower medium” credit rating, and the fact that its share price has stopped rising in step with oil prices, Dowlatabadi said Trans Mountain’s viability “may be more uncertain than the company has let on,” Berman writes.
