Both positive and negative economic consequences to spills — Kinder Morgan app

BUT ‘NO SPILL IS ACCEPTABLE TO US,’ COMPANY SAYS/

NEWS/ ENVIRONMENT — There are economic spinoffs to marine oil spills, says Kinder Morgan, the company that plans a $5.4 billion expansion to the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta through Kamloops to Burnaby.

However, the company also says no spill is acceptable.

CBC Radio West reported today that a paragraph in Kinder Morgan’s submission to the National Energy Board on the Trans Mountain expansion project says that while spills have negative impacts on tourism and fishing, spill response and clean-up creates business and employment.

Caitlyn Vernon of the B.C. branch of the Sierra Club of Canada told CBC, “It’s just pure spin to say there would be economic spinoff” from a spill. The Sierra Club opposes the project.

Kinder Morgan spokesman Michael Davies told The Vancouver Sun in response to media coverage of the paragraph in the application, “No spill is acceptable to us. While we are required by the National Energy Board to explore both the positive and negative socio-economic effects of a spill, it in no way means we accept the inevitability of a spill, nor justify one.”

Kinder Morgan is expected to release a statement on the excerpt. CBC posted the paragraph, part  of the company’s eight-volume facilities application filed last Dec. 16, on Facebook today. It states:

“Marine spills can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies over the short- and long-term. Spill response and clean-up creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and clean-up service providers, particularly in those communities where spill response equipment is, or would be, staged (Section 5.5). This demand for services and personnel can also directly or indirectly affect businesses and resource-dependant livelihoods. The net overall effect depends on the size and extent of a spill, the associated demand for clean-up services and personnel, the capacity of local and regional businesses to meet this demand, the willingness of local businesses and residents to pursue response opportunities, the extent of business and livelihoods adversely affected (directly or indirectly) by the spill, and the duration and extent of spill response and clean-up activities. As an example, positive spill-related economic effects were documented for major spill clean-up areas following the EVOS (McDowell Group 1990). Negative effects on tourism and commercial fishing were also documented, as described below.”