The Legislature Raids

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Please scroll back to 4/5/07 on this web-site for a different slant on the disaster occurring on the shores of Burrard Inlet. Look for:
B.C. RAIL'S NEW 40-YEAR LEASE AGREEMENT WITH KINDER MORGAN.

Here's a quote: Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. is one of the largest publicly traded pipeline limited partnerships in America. KMP owns an interest in or operates approximately 26,000 miles of pipelines and approximately 150 terminals. Its pipelines transport more than two million barrels/day of gasoline and other petroleum products and up to seven billion cubic feet/day of natural gas, and its terminals handle over 90 million tons of coal and other bulk materials annually and have a liquids storage capacity of about 70 million barrels for petroleum products and chemicals. KMP is also the leading provider of CO(2) for enhanced oil recovery projects in North America.

Then go to 3/14/07 and see:
B.C. RAIL WAS PART OF CONTINENTAL PLAN FOR NORTH AMERICAN UNION (NAU) BASED UPON THE NAFTA/NASCO SUPER CORRIDOR

Quote: While Gordon Campbell was promising in 2001 that his government, if elected, would never sell British Columbia Railway, plans for the North American Union based upon the NAFTA-NASCO SuperCorridor were under way. One glance at this map will explain why our railway proved irresistible to the empire-builders (elected and unelected).


Then see the 3/16/07 post titled NAFTA-NASCO SUPERHIGHWAY with maps. This one is well worth re-reading at this time, because of the final quotes from Premier Campbell which will be provided in conclusion.

Quote: Existing west coast port facilities are severely limited in their ability to expand. The current congestion on southern highway and rail lines is economically impacting delivery times and cost. The new Port of Prince Rupert will be focused solely on the movement of containers, grain and coal.

There are three deep-sea port locations in British Columbia connected to the continental highway and rail grid: the lower mainland, Prince Rupert and Kitimat.


And, as oil spills from Kinder Morgan's pipeline, ruptured by such a simple thing as a backhoe, let's listen in as Premier Gordon Campbell addresses "a powerful group" in Anchorage Alaska -- knowing they will appreciate his dreams of a new kind of British Columbia:


CAMPBELL'S NEW WAY OF DOING POLITICS AND BUSINESS

By GARY MASON
The Globe and Mail - July 24, 2007


ANCHORAGE, ALASKA -- The future of governance in North America is taking place here. At least that's what British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell believes.

And that was his somewhat provocative message yesterday to a powerful group of business and political leaders from the Pacific Northwest that has gathered in Anchorage to discuss a range of common issues from border security to trade opportunities with Asia.

"We don't need permissions from our federal governments," Mr. Campbell told the group. "We can't wait for them. We have to act. If we don't we'll lose."

He was speaking to the annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, a group that has been around for 17 years but has taken on a much higher profile in the past few years as state and provincial governments join to solve a host of shared problems.

And look at a range of new opportunities.

PNWER consists of B.C., Alberta and Yukon, as well as the U.S. states of Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Oregon. Together, they form a powerful economic and political entity with a total population of more than 20 million people and gross domestic product of about $848-billion (U.S.).

Throw California into the mix, as Mr. Campbell likes to do, and the power of the region becomes even more staggering, with a GDP of more than $2-trillion and a population of nearly 60 million. {Snip} ...

The Premier has already begun to do this within Canada with the interprovincial free-trade agreement B.C. recently signed with Alberta. He is encouraging other provinces to join.

One area Mr. Campbell talked about yesterday was trade with Asia. And the huge advantage China is opening up in terms of port capacity.

For instance, the port capacity in the Pacific Northwest combined totals 7.1 million 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs as they are known. A TEU is the equivalent of one standard-size container. Shanghai's capacity, Mr. Campbell said, is 21 million TEUs. And it plans to increase that capacity by 60 million TEUs in three years.

"That's seven times the capacity we have now," Mr. Campbell said. "Even if we doubled our current capacity we don't have enough capacity to respond to that. So we need to look at this challenge as a group, instead of as individual entities, and see what we can do collectively. How can we collaborate and improve all our economies at the same time? That is what we need to start doing more of. Not waiting for federal governments to step in." {Snip} ...

[Washington State has been working on harmonizing their Drivers' Licences with British Coumbia's. - BC Mary]

"This is the future of governance," Mr. Campbell said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. "Too often institutional inertia holds you back from doing things. The only way to move forward is to get together a group of people of like minds and say, 'Let's act.'

"If you want to join us, fine, if you don't, that's fine too. But we're going to go ahead anyway. We can drive societal change by our action. We can lead and let the federal governments follow in the wake of our momentum. I think that's what we're doing in the Pacific Northwest now and I think that's fundamentally different from the way we used to do things." {Snip} ...

Read the full article at:

http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070724/BCMASON24/Headlines/headdex/headdexColumnists/3/3/7/

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Gary Mason: Thanks for this report. Often, I passionately disagree with your take on B.C. developments. But this report (in my view) reflects a nervousness which is much to your credit. Thanks again. - BC Mary.

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Now an important August 1, 2007 Update: Kinder Morgan was not using the available technology to chart exactly where the underground pipeline was ... ? Read on:


RADAR QUICKLY PINPOINTS PIPELINE
Jonathan Woodward,
Vancouver Sun - August 02, 2007

While there has been much discussion about where the Kinder Morgan pipeline actually runs under Inlet Drive in Burnaby, The Vancouver Sun can now say exactly where it is.

A Sun reporter and photographer donned hard hats and safety vests, slipped past flag people Tuesday evening and joined a crew from Terraprobe, a Burnaby-based firm specializing in ground-penetrating radar, to map the pipeline with scientific precision.

Using a lawn mower-sized device, the whole procedure took less than 30 minutes, and enabled The Sun to know within centimetres not only where the 61-centimetre (24-inch) pipeline was along the suburban highway stretch, but also every water main, electrical line and major underground structure.

"The pipeline is a very large, obvious target," said Csaba Ekes, president of Terraprobe, whose firm offered to do the probe. "If we had been able to do this last week, we would have accurately mapped the pipeline's location then, too." {SNIP} ...

It's important contractors get the most exact information they can before they dig, said University of B.C. civil engineering Prof. Nemy Banthia. "Ground-penetrating radar is a very good way of doing this. So anybody who is excavating should do GPR mapping of the place before anything happens, especially if there is a sensitive pipeline here."

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=0a32cfe2-b0c8-4202-b690-ff62a0c80b2f

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