The Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline overcame a significantpolitical hurdle last week, signing an agreement with protestingNova Scotia Indians that smoothes the way for deliveries of 450MMcf/d of Sable Island gas to begin by the end of the year. Theagreement with the Assembly of the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefscovers a wide variety of environmental and socio-economic programsgiving native Indians a head start on industry-related jobs andtraining and ensures that Indians on a Mi’kmaq reserve will be thefirst Atlantic Canadians to receive gas. The National Energy Boardadded its final stamp of approval.

The agreement includes expansive education and trainingprograms and help for native enterprise start-ups in installationof pipes and meters, gas marketing and work in the offshore. Ittargets the Indians for at least 5% of the project work done in theprovince. The plan came together quietly, as part of a C$1.05million two-year aboriginal relations effort that continued behindthe scenes of the scrapping.

The agreement is expected to satisfy an item in NEB regulationscalled Condition 22, which requires a project that crosses Indianterritory to develop a program of impact studies and environmentalmonitoring with the Indians, in this case Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaqnatives. This fall, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal directed theNEB to rehear a portion of its M&NP approval in order to ensurecompliance with Condition 22. Maritimes negotiations with theMi’kmaq had broken off prior to the signing of an agreement, butthe board went ahead and approved the project anyway.

Financial details of the agreement were not released. Butdocuments at the NEB’s Calgary office indicated a key stumblingblock has been cleared from the Atlantic gas industry’s path. It nolonger faces demands for about C$130 million (US$87 million) incompensation claims for disruption of territory, which is claimedby the natives but not yet won by them in negotiations or courtcases. The agreement says the natives do not give up any claims byco-operating with the pipeline. The commitments add that “mattersrespecting aboriginal title and unresolved treaty rights must beresolved between members of the aboriginal community and thegovernments of Nova Scotia and Canada and cannot and should not beaddressed by the project proponents.”

M&NP president Pat Langan predicted the new Atlantic gassector will be fully up and running by the new year, withdeliveries on their way to the Boston area. At the same time as thepipeline resolved its conficts with natives, the Sable productionsystem was receiving final operating permits from the Canada-NovaScotia Offshore Petroleum Board.

Gordon Jaremko, Calgary; Rocco Canonica, Washington, D.C.

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