Pros And Cons Of The Kinder Morgan Pipeline

Throughout much of Canada there has been a battle for the Kinder Morgan Pipeline being built, the second installment of the pipeline will run from Vancouver, British Columbia to Edmonton, Alberta (Little,2018). With the precautions of the pipeline being installed, there has been various opinions and thoughts on this controversial topic. From individuals standing with the 15,000 new jobs it will be creating to it’s tremendous damage it can do to our country and the Earth (National Resources Canada, 2017). Due to the extensive valuable information I have researched and analysed, I believe the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline should not be funded by the Canadian Government. The reason for my believe is because of the many negative

which end up the main source of supporting their families. If a major spill was to occur it would kill up to 500,000 birds alone (Trans Mountain Assessment Report, 2017). With this other animals such as, shellfish, juvenile salmon, forage fish, and other marine mammals such as orcas, can die from habitat quality and a drastic decrease in numbers ultimately vanishing completely. An example of this is the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, from this catastrophe it had killed and drastically collapsed the herring population which was thriving prior to the incident. 25 years later, the herring population has not returned to what it was (Trans Mountain Assessment Report, 2017). From this many communities will lose the opportunity to eat safe and sufficient wild food. Another factor is with the stranded oil on the shoreline of Burrard Inlet it will create long-term contamination as the shellfish and finfish communities can take years to recover, since the embryos will die from the toxic effects. However with the dramatic amount of fishes decreasing comes along the various individuals jobs that field around the fishing industry. Unifer and the Alberta Federation of Labour estimate with the lost jobs, lost economic wealth, and the

With the loss up to 500,000 birds and extensive loss of animals in the waters (salmon, herring, orcas, etc.) can lead to extinction. An example of this is with the twinning of the pipeline, it will majorly place orcas in jeopardy as there were to be 98 orcas in 1995 as there are only 76 left from last year found in British Columbia (Aylesworth, 2017), they have concluded that the southern resident killer whales in British Columbia are considered an endangered species while the northern whales are already considered threatened. With the expansion and building of the pipelines from the running tankers and tug engines creates loud noise pollution that thoroughly disturbs their habitat and disturbs their senses as they rely on sonar to communicate and forage for food which places them under large amounts of stress as it weakens their life spans of 17-29 years (Trans Mountain Assessment Report, 2017). While orcas rely on tons of salmon as a food source, if an oil spill were to occur, a large portion of the salmon population can be expected to die out. As the food chain will start to drastically deplete, the total loss orcas, salmons, herring etc. will soon be gone. From the pipeline several protests have broken out regarding the project, many led by First