Above photo: Greenpeace activists hang a large banner off of one of the oil storage containers at the Kinder Morgan facility as they paint “Stop Tar Sands” on the other in Burrard Inlet in Burnaby, B.C. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Greenpeace protesters displayed their displeasure with increased bitumen oil shipments into Burrard Inlet Wednesday with a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
‘Harper: No Tar Sands Pipeline’ read a banner that was unfurled from a storage tank at the Burnaby facility where Kinder Morgan-Canada unloads the controversial oil from Alberta onto tanker ships for export.
Two protesters chained themselves to the gates of the facility while another 14 spread their message around the grounds in advance of Harper’s delivery of his legislative agenda in the Throne Speech in Ottawa.
In addition to the giant banner, a storage tank received a painted message while a camping platform was erected atop two towers for some more protesters to use as an occupation base.
Mike Hudema, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace, said the protesters were “prepared to stay overnight” but the day-long protest wrapped just before 8 p.m.
Protesters left voluntarily and peacefully, and no arrests were made.
Hudema said the protest was intended to send a message to Harper and B.C. Premier Christy Clark, who he suggested was “wavering” in her opposition to both the expanded Kinder Morgan pipeline and the Northern Gateway pipeline.
“We don’t want tarsands oil pipelines coming to B.C.’s coastline and we don’t want the tankers they would bring,” said Hudema.
He suggested the proposed expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline would lead to a three-fold increase of oil coming to the Burnaby facility, from the current 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000, and up to 400 oil tankers a year coming to the inlet.
“That would pose an ongoing threat to the coastline and all the communities, the environment and the economies that depend on it,” said Hudema.
Greenpeace’s protest message only became visible when the thick fog in Burrard Inlet finally lifted.
But it didn’t impede the flow of oil Wednesday because, as Kinder Morgan-Canada spokesman Andrew Galarnyk explained in an email statement: “There is no vessel scheduled at the Westridge Marine Terminal today, so today’s actions has not impacted our marine operations.
“The Westridge Terminal is also where we have jet fuel storage and delivery operations that provides jet fuel to the Vancouver International Airport,” said Galarynyk. “There are no scheduled deliveries from Westridge to YVR today so there is no impact to that operation at this time,
“We will do everything we can to resume normal operations at Westridge,” he continued.
Galarynyk wouldn’t say how long Kinder Morgan would tolerate the occupation of the site but his statement included safety considerations.
“Our focus today is the safety of our staff, the facilities, the protesters and the community,” he said. “We respect the rights of protesters to advance their cause but in this case we are very concerned about this trespass and disturbance at the Westridge Marine terminal.”
The price for the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion is tabbed at $5.4 billion. The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline carries a cost that has been reported to be $6.5 billion.