Five years after Burnaby oil pipeline rupture, residents rally against Kinder Morgan expansion

The oil that slicked trees and blackened lawns has long been cleaned from the homes hardest hit by the rupture of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline five years ago.

But the painful memories remain and have turned some longtime Burnaby residents into fervid critics trying to mobilize their newer neighbours to fight against its proposed expansion.

Retired elementary teacher Mary Hatch, 66, is not your stereotypical eco-warrior. Before the spill covered the property she’s shared with her family since 1976, she didn’t even know thousands of barrels of oil were passing just metres away every single day.

“I was sitting in my kitchen doing some work at my table when a fireman came to my door and told me I had to evacuate because there was an oil spill,” she said of the July 2007 rupture. “I didn’t know what that meant, it didn’t mean anything to me.”

About 250,000 litres of crude leaked into the community after a road crew’s excavator hit the pipeline. 70,000 litres flowed into Burrard Inlet. The cleanup cost roughly $15 million and 250 residents were evacuated.

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said residents near the spill on Inlet Drive are still traumatized, and many have become vocal critics of the pipeline expansion.

“I think there’s residual bitterness despite the fact that Kinder Morgan did a good job of coming in and helping the people afterwards,” he said.

Hatch has become more engaged in the fight to stop the expansion since she learned of Kinder Morgan’s plan to increase the pipeline’s capacity from 300,000 to 750,000 barrels a day. The move could quadruple the number of tankers in Burrard Inlet, from about five a month to more than 20.

Two weeks ago, Hatch and roughly 20 other concerned residents formed the group Burnaby Residents Opposing Kinder Morgan’s Expansion (BROKE).

Member Laura Dean, a 57-year-old retired fitness trainer, has lived down the hill from Hatch, about 100 yards away from the oil tankers on Burrard Inlet, for the past 21 years. Dean said BROKE wants to increase public awareness of the environmental issues surrounding the expansion and urge people to “get to” politicians like Burnaby North Liberal MLA Richard T. Lee, who so far hasn’t taken a position on the twinning project.

A telephone survey commissioned by Burnaby-Douglas NDP MP Kennedy Stewart last December showed almost three quarters of North Burnaby residents polled oppose the twinning. A similar provincewide Angus Reid survey conducted two weeks ago found 37 per cent were in favour of the project, but still half of all respondents were opposed. A representative of Texas-based Kinder Morgan could not be reached for comment on its ongoing consultation with residents.

Almost a third – 30 per cent – of the 4,500 respondents in the Burnaby poll didn’t have an opinion on the matter, something that bewilders Hatch.

“I’m appalled that this neighbourhood here, people who have been affected by it, are not even that aware or that interested in ‘will it or won’t it affect me?’” she said. When Jennifer Kebe and her family moved in across the street from Hatch two and a half years ago, the 2007 spill didn’t play into their decision at all. “I remembered that there was the oil spill, but I had forgotten where it was in all honesty.”

Looking past the tomatoes, peas and carrots growing in her front garden, the 35-year-old biologist said she doesn’t consider herself a “treehugger,” but any new infrastructure projects should have high environmental standards. Kebe said she is resigned to the fact that the world runs on oil, and although she is against the Northern Gateway project, which would transport bitumen through northern B.C. and down it’s rugged coast, she isn’t opposed to expanding Trans Mountain.

“In my opinion, twinning a pipeline is better than building a new one,” Kebe said.

A couple doors down, 79-year-old David Brown said cleanup crews “did as good a job as can be expected” in 2007, but he now believes pipelines are going to rupture through one cause or another.

“Is the oil absolutely necessary? The world can’t survive without oil? That’s not true,” said the retired BC Tel manager. “They’re going to have to learn how to do that, so why postpone the lesson? Let’s get at it.”