(Francis Gardner’s notes from Bartlett’s testimony at ERCB hearing)

 

Curtis Bartlett, Southern Alberta rancher and oil company owner, presented to the Energy Research and Conservation Board on January 29, 2009 a comparison of the pipeline routes that Petro-Canada has examined, concluding with the rejection of Petro-Canada’s chosen K-Country route.

 

In a seven-hour testimony including cross-examination, Mr. Bartlett spoke to 45 points on the pipeline routes based on the Petro-Canada Environmental Assessment.  He compared the pipeline route proposed by Petro-Canada (the K -Country route) and an alternative route under consideration that travels parallel to Hwy 940.

 

Mr Bartlett said that the K-Country route travels through areas that are grown and that have no wheel traffic. It is an area that is least disturbed. In contrast, the industrial route along Hwy 940 is used for logging as well as oil and gas pipelines. The rancher and oilman reviewed 45 points to consider in the decision of which route to use and ranked them as supporting the K-Country route or supporting the Highway 940 route. Included in the categories were fragmentation, mitigation, cleaning required, reclamation costs, land owners and stakeholder, wildlife habitat and water course crossings. He stated that 31 bridges through valuable water courses could be avoided by using Highway 940. He also noted that Petro-Canada failed to consider fisheries as a factor and did not even acknowledge the existence and inherent danger to the threatened West Slope Cutthroat Trout in the Headwater region.

 

Speaking to the visibility (Category 23) of the project Mr. Bartlett stated that Petro-Canada seemed to say that if the pipeline and construction can not be seen, it must be better. Mr. Bartlett also observed that the corporate reputation of Petro-Canada will be damaged by constructing the pipeline through K-Country as opposed to hwy 940. He felt it would damage the reputation of the oil industry generally. Further, he said that when residents of the area had previously shown their opposition to the K-Country route, Petro-Canada would give the residents a lecture that K-Country was the only route. He concluded with the comment that if Petro-Canada had asked residents where to construct the pipeline, instead of the other way around, maybe no hearing would have been needed.

 

During the presentation, Mr. Bartlett read the current statistics from the Petrocant website.  When a member of the ERCB panel asked Mr. Bartlett if there was any merit in those numbers, he replied that the ERCB should listen to those numbers as Crown land or public land was involved.

 

In conclusion Mr. Bartlett ranked the 45 points that had been presented in terms of favouring the route of Hwy 940 or K-Country using solid research based on the Petro-Canada Environmental Assessment. The following results were found: 32 points favoured Hwy 940, none favoured K-Country, seven points were equal and six points had insufficient data.

 

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