Natural gas producers and pipeline developers stand warned to make community relations a priority if they advance, as planned this year, a proposal to connect Arctic supplies with a project traversing the native-dominated Mackenzie Valley.

With a project by Duke Energy Gas Transmission Canada serving as an example, the National Energy Board has sent pipelines a message — pay close attention to all aboriginal communities along the routes.

Native issues need to be taken into account before, during and after the formal approval process, indicated a ruling on a C$270 million (US$175 million), 10% capacity increase for Duke’s Westcoast Energy grid in British Columbia to 2.1 Bcf/d.

The NEB granted approval, but only after Vancouver-based Duke Canada expanded its aboriginal consultations and settled a dispute that threatened to delay or scuttle the case. The final ruling also added orders for the company to file plans for dealing with every native traditional use area affected by the project prior to starting construction every step of the way.

The board acknowledged that some First Nations — the ones thought to be most directly affected — along the Westcoast pipeline were contacted before the application for the capacity expansion was filed. But the NEB reminded Duke Canada that the selective approach turned out not to be enough and that a procedure was created to ensure all the aboriginal communities were brought into the case. The board said it “encourages” the pipeline “to ensure that, in the future, all potentially affected First Nations are contacted early in the process.”

The NEB further reminded Duke Canada that it still might be waiting for a decision if it had chosen to fight rather than make peace with a protesting aboriginal community that raised constitutional and procedural issues. The Caribou Tribal Council, in the Williams Lake area of northern B.C., amassed an arsenal of objections to the pipeline’s original version of consultation that caught the attention of the federal attorney general and forced the NEB to call a special hearing last fall. It was cancelled only after the company and the council reached a settlement, on terms that have yet to be disclosed.

While approved, the B.C. pipeline expansion is not yet out of the woods. The decision included a condition that will keep the industrialists on probation throughout the execution stage of the project.

Duke Canada was ordered to complete, file and obtain approval for traditional land-use studies done in co-operation with aboriginal communities along the Westcoast route. The documentation has to show effects of each new piece of the pipeline system and how any damage will be repaired. The reports and commitments have to be presented 30 days prior to starting construction on every part of the project unless the NEB agrees to different timing.

The ruling said the studies have to include “final mitigative measures with respect to potential impacts…on the use of lands and resources for traditional purposes by aboriginal persons.” The reports to the NEB must fully disclose native reaction to the plans. The board directed that the company “shall provide evidence with respect to the opportunities provided to participants in the traditional land use study to comment on the draft report and the mitigative measures for that pipeline loop, and shall provide any comments received.”

While clarifying the extent of industry responsibilities for dealing with aboriginal communities along pipelines, the NEB ruling turned down other interveners’ requests for an expansion of environmental accountability. Duke Canada faced an array of B.C. conservationists who called on the board to assess how the project contributed to “sustainable development.”

The critics maintained that the pipeline should be held accountable for increases in carbon dioxide emissions from users of the gas transported by the new facilities, for instance. In rejecting the environmentalists and approving the B.C. pipeline expansion, the NEB affirmed a ruling last fall that a gas transporter cannot be held responsible for behavior by customers that it does not control.

The NEB directed the environmentalists’ attention to energy consumers. The board pointed out gas pipelines remain “contract carriers.” That means the Westcoast system “is obligated to transport gas for its contracted shippers regardless of the final destination of the gas…each end-use facility must comply with the regulations and standards administered by the appropriate jurisdictions.”

The pipeline only becomes accountable for the behavior of operations that want the gas, such as power stations, when an expansion of delivery capacity is directly tied to projects by the energy consumers. The NEB observed that could still happen to Duke Canada in future, if it applies for more new facilities to serve hotly-contested power projects on the Canadian and U.S. West Coast.

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