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Burnaby’s Trans Mountain injunction rejected by Supreme Court

Published by , Senior Editor
World Pipelines,


The City of Burnaby's application for a temporary injunction to stop Kinder Morgan cutting trees for survey work on Burnaby Mountain has been rejected by a B.C. Supreme Court Judge.

The judge in the case has not yet issued the reasons for the decision. Those could be issued next week.

The city was seeking the temporary injunction while it prepares for an upcoming court case challenging the company's right to cut trees in the conservation area as part of its survey work for a new route for its existing Trans Mountain Pipeline.

The company has proposed rerouting the existing pipeline by tunnelling under the mountain to reach its terminal near Burrard Inlet.

The City of Burnaby has been a staunch opponent of the Trans Mountain expansion, a Cdn$ 5.4 billion project to nearly triple the flow of bitumen and other oil products from Alberta along a pipeline to a terminal in Burnaby.

Injunction application rejected

In a brief ruling released yesterday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown said she would not give the reasons for her decision until possibly next week.

Greg McDade, a lawyer for Burnaby, said outside court that the next move is to see what the federal National Energy Board (NEB) does in the wake of the ruling.

The company has asked the NEB, which earlier granted permission for the project, to make an order that Burnaby stop getting in the way of the work.

New Trans Mountain route?

Kinder Morgan may revert back to its original pipeline route through the Westridge neighbourhood if the city’s opposition to the project significantly delays survey work on Burnaby Mountain.

Kinder Morgan wants to tunnel or drill through Burnaby Mountain to connect the tank farm with the Westridge Marine Terminal, but since this route was not in the original application to the NEB, the board asked the company to conduct survey work and geotechnical studies to determine if the route is feasible.

The National Energy Board gave Kinder Morgan a 1 December deadline to complete the survey work, and the company began in late August.

Edited from various sources by Elizabeth Corner

Sources: CBCThe ProvinceTimes Colonist

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/18092014/burnabys-trans-mountain-injunction-rejected-by-supreme-court/

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