A Venue for Citizen Journalists
New 33-unit project makes matters worse
Thanks to generous donations from readers, this site is renovated and improved.
Affordability has been a ruse for creating market rate housing.
Represent Us and Our Interests. Please!
Local action in support of a proposal to rebuild nationwide infrastructure
Who’s Superman when you need him? We are.
From Musk’s big investment all the way to local campaigns, political “contributions” will be re-paid. Here’s how.
Private banks are fighting hard to keep us from starting our own state bank. There’s a reason.
To be so manifestly unqualified and yet not be deeply aware of that speaks exactly to the very point of not being qualified.
Chaos likely to ensue. Catastrophe cannot be ruled out.
There is no escape from the deep-throated roar and the clouds of filth produced by these machines.
A perspective from a very old liberal political junkie.
Deeds, not talk, count on Veterans Day
Several days ago, I received the following from Veterans Service Officer (VSO), Liz Witowski, of the Whatcom County Veterans Program (items below in bold are mine). On this Veterans Day, the
An off-budget $5 Trillion National Infrastructure Bank (NIB), along the lines of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) that operated between 1932-1957, means low-cost loans and no additions to the deficit.
Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare. Medicare is there to provide health care. Medicare Advantage is a business, there to make money.
David Swanson verifies what Jon Humphrey has said for years: good internet access benefits people, cities, counties, and states.
Or perhaps tragic farce or farcical tragedy might be more apt descriptors. Pick one, or both.
After nearly 30 years online, and literally being one of the oldest blogs on the internet, Northwest Citizen needs a major programming overhaul. To do so, we need your help.
The top 20% of commercial banks in the United States control 95% of our total banking assets. Remember “Too-Big-to-Fail”?
The City has created another useless document ensuring nothing changes and mediocre communication services are protected.
Why a vote for Jason Call for Congress is a good vote for conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans. Yes, an unusual idea.
Heaven forbid our reps should attack the main problem, Medicare Advantage, head on. But no. They must nibble around the edges to give the appearance of doing something.
Morally significant double binds force doctors and combat soldiers into identical life and death quandaries, damaging their moral centers. To these two groups we can also add law enforcement officers.
Eric Hirst gives us a brief and clear explanation of the water adjudication process that is beginning now in Whatcom County
“Citing the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the paper  [Less Care at Higher Cost—The Medicare Advantage Paradox] notes that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have overcharged the
Aggressive citizen involvement carried the day.
Build-for-profit, incarceration-inspired housing is destroying our souls.
A 54-photo tour of the ruptured pipe area of the Whatcom Creek explosion taken in July 1999.
The last of the scrap metal is loaded on the ship and it will be gone from our town.
Below is an audio tape of 911 calls, emergency responders’ radio communications, and local radio coverage from June 10, 1999 when Whatcom Creek exploded in Bellingham
Whatcom County’s confusing water rights will be defined by court proceedings beginning now
The foam of secrecy hides all.
If not killed-in-action, they are still dying from the effects of their service in Vietnam.
Local presentations scheduled on a reasonable use framework for water resource management
Broadband-Washing: Greenwashing the Internet
Pacific Northwest organizers join a global campaign to abolish all nukes and push for a city council resolution to start
If the hospitals are smelling a rat, so should Medicare (Dis)Advantage victims (AKA enrollees).
With such a bank in place, we would likely not be scrambling around and asking Congress for rebuild monies, as we are now with the catastrophic event involving the Francis Scott Key bridge on March 26, 2024.
Port of Bellingham commissioners terminate last 13 years of ABC Recycling lease

Canada’s Pipe Dream Threatens the Salish Sea

A southern resident orca feeds on salmon along the west side of San Juan Island. (Spirit of Orca Whale Watching and Wildlife Tours)

A southern resident orca feeds on salmon along the west side of San Juan Island. (Spirit of Orca Whale Watching and Wildlife Tours)
A southern resident orca feeds on salmon along the west side of San Juan Island. (Spirit of Orca Whale Watching and Wildlife Tours)

Canada’s Pipe Dream Threatens the Salish Sea

Canada’s Pipe Dream Threatens the Salish Sea

Canada continues to push forward on its Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion despit overwhelming opposition and damning evidence — as well as serious economic headwinds — against it.

Based in part on an article originally published in Seattle Times Opinions on March 10, 2019.

Coauthored with Janet Alderton, whose brief bio appears below.

Despite overwhelming opposition from British Columbia, Washington state, and tribes, counties and cities on both sides of the border, plus strong evidence that the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project will inevitably harm the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale population, the Canadian National Energy Board has recommended that the project should proceed. This is a deeply flawed decision.

Of paramount concern to Washington citizens are the adverse impacts on the struggling orcas, whose population in the wild is now down to 75 members — close to the lowest level in decades. If this project is completed as planned, an additional 590,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil could be shipped daily from the Westridge Terminal in Burnaby, BC; that would result in a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic to more than 800 transits per year through the orcas’ critical habitat in Haro Strait, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and adjacent Salish Sea waters.

The additional underwater noise from hundreds more tankers annually will be difficult if not impossible to mitigate. This inevitably greater racket will further obscure their favorite Chinook salmon prey, which the orcas track and find using echolocation. And the tugboats necessarily accompanying these huge, lumbering tankers for safety reasons would ironically generate even more underwater noise.

Spill off Tsawwassen would coat Whatcom County waters and beaches.
A major spill off Roberts Point would coat Whatcom County waters and shores, according to a computer simulation.

If a major oil spill were to occur in the Salish Sea from one of these tankers, the impact on the orcas would be devastating, likely wiping out the entire species. The purported “clean up” of conventional floating oils is a widespread industry myth, as their recovery level is 20 percent at best. After the volatile components evaporate, the remaining heavier oils can remain in the marine environment for decades — as shown by the residues that still linger in Alaska’s Prince William Sound 30 years after the Exxon Valdez spill.

But not only could such a large spill in Haro Strait coat nearby shores and tidelands with sticky, smelly ooze. If the tanker carried diluted bitumen from tar-sands deposits in Alberta, a sizable portion of it could also separate and sink to the sea floor under conditions of high winds and waves — smothering benthic species there, including the Pacific sand lance that are a principal prey of Chinook salmon.

So why does the Canadian government want to push forward with this ill-considered project in the face of overwhelming opposition and damning evidence? It’s because the Trans Mountain pipeline is the only option it has left to get added Alberta tar-sands crude oil to tidewaters, where it could be shipped overseas and supposedly earn higher profits. After two other such pipelines had been cancelled, the federal government bought the existing Trans Mountain pipeline [2] for CA$4.5 billion (US$3.7 billion) to keep the third option alive. And it will cost Canada at least another CA$7.4 billion to nearly triple its capacity.

But the likely government decision to expand this pipeline is based on deeply flawed economic analysis. The demand for high-sulfur tar-sands crude is projected to drop when the International Maritime Organization’s global pollution standards become more stringent less than a year from now. All large commercial vessels must significantly reduce their sulfur-dioxide emissions by January 1. Most will do that by switching to low-sulfur fuels rather than the high-sulfur bunker fuels that have been commonly used on ocean-going vessels. And because Alberta tar-sands crudes have among the highest sulfur contents in the world, which makes refining them costly, the market for them is likely to plummet.

Moreover, Canada’s fervent hope that Asian markets for its heavy crudes will materialize is a pipe dream. According to a recent Greenpeace analysis, 92 percent of the current shipments from Burnaby go to US refineries, mostly in California and Washington, able to handle heavy, sulfur-laden crudes. That number is unlikely to change much should the expansion go through.

The Aframax-size tankers that can load crude oil in Burnaby and pass under Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge are too small to compete in international markets with the gigantic supertankers now plying the oceans. And Asian refineries have been reluctant to invest the billions required for the additional infrastructure needed to refine high-sulfur crude oil economically when lower-sulfur crudes are available.

The 92 percent of shipments to US refineries do not include the more than 150,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil that currently enter our state daily via the Puget Sound Pipeline System, a spur of the Trans Mountain Pipeline that supplies Whatcom and Skagit County refineries. These refineries will have to face the same diminishing markets for high-sulfur fuels — and resolve what can be done with all the sulfurous byproducts that will soon begin piling up.

In all likelihood, the added Trans Mountain pipeline capacity would be for nought. And Canadian citizens will be left holding the bag, wondering how they ever got snookered into wasting billions on such an economic dinosaur.

Janet Alderton is president of the Friends of the San Juans, a nonprofit organization working to protect the San Juan Islands for people and nature, including oil spill prevention throughout the Salish Sea. She is serving her second term on Washington state’s Citizen’s Committee for Pipeline Safety, a group convened by Governor Chris Gregoire after two boys were killed in the 1999 Bellingham pipeline explosion.



2 Comments, most recent 5 years ago

Konrad Lau · South Whatcom County
Mon Apr 1, 2019

Here we have another, well-written diatribe regarding the dearth of Orca in the local waters and the threats (real or imagined) to their continued residency.

I read the article and no mention was made of the continued, century-old dumping of human waste (i.e. black water and sludge) into those same waters.

Why can we not focus on the real, clear and present dangers presented to the wildlife now and then think about the other proposed dangers?

Nice article but I believe it to be misplaced effort.

Michael Riordan · Eastsound, WA
Mon Apr 1, 2019

According to a recent, authoritative NOAA report, noise pollution from passing vessels is one of the three major factors adversely impacting the orcas and limiting their population growth — the other two being, yes, toxic pollutants in Salish Sea waters and the dearth of the orcas’ favorite prey, Chinook salmon. We’ve examined the first in some detail and feel qualified to write about it, as well as on marine transport of tar-sands crude oils and on the politics and economics of exporting them. Other writers could address the valid issue of toxic pollutants.

Whatcom County residents should also be aware of the large amounts of sulfur that are entering the county via Puget Sound Pipeline system. These amounts will grow dramatically if the Trans Mountain expansion project goes forward, including upgrades to the Puget Sound Pipeline — which is now owned by the Canadian federal government.

- Commenting is closed -

Canada’s Pipe Dream Threatens the Salish Sea

A southern resident orca feeds on salmon along the west side of San Juan Island. (Spirit of Orca Whale Watching and Wildlife Tours)

A southern resident orca feeds on salmon along the west side of San Juan Island. (Spirit of Orca Whale Watching and Wildlife Tours)
A southern resident orca feeds on salmon along the west side of San Juan Island. (Spirit of Orca Whale Watching and Wildlife Tours)

Canada’s Pipe Dream Threatens the Salish Sea

Canada’s Pipe Dream Threatens the Salish Sea

Canada continues to push forward on its Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion despit overwhelming opposition and damning evidence — as well as serious economic headwinds — against it.

Based in part on an article originally published in Seattle Times Opinions on March 10, 2019.

Coauthored with Janet Alderton, whose brief bio appears below.

Despite overwhelming opposition from British Columbia, Washington state, and tribes, counties and cities on both sides of the border, plus strong evidence that the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project will inevitably harm the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale population, the Canadian National Energy Board has recommended that the project should proceed. This is a deeply flawed decision.

Of paramount concern to Washington citizens are the adverse impacts on the struggling orcas, whose population in the wild is now down to 75 members — close to the lowest level in decades. If this project is completed as planned, an additional 590,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil could be shipped daily from the Westridge Terminal in Burnaby, BC; that would result in a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic to more than 800 transits per year through the orcas’ critical habitat in Haro Strait, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and adjacent Salish Sea waters.

The additional underwater noise from hundreds more tankers annually will be difficult if not impossible to mitigate. This inevitably greater racket will further obscure their favorite Chinook salmon prey, which the orcas track and find using echolocation. And the tugboats necessarily accompanying these huge, lumbering tankers for safety reasons would ironically generate even more underwater noise.

Spill off Tsawwassen would coat Whatcom County waters and beaches.
A major spill off Roberts Point would coat Whatcom County waters and shores, according to a computer simulation.

If a major oil spill were to occur in the Salish Sea from one of these tankers, the impact on the orcas would be devastating, likely wiping out the entire species. The purported “clean up” of conventional floating oils is a widespread industry myth, as their recovery level is 20 percent at best. After the volatile components evaporate, the remaining heavier oils can remain in the marine environment for decades — as shown by the residues that still linger in Alaska’s Prince William Sound 30 years after the Exxon Valdez spill.

But not only could such a large spill in Haro Strait coat nearby shores and tidelands with sticky, smelly ooze. If the tanker carried diluted bitumen from tar-sands deposits in Alberta, a sizable portion of it could also separate and sink to the sea floor under conditions of high winds and waves — smothering benthic species there, including the Pacific sand lance that are a principal prey of Chinook salmon.

So why does the Canadian government want to push forward with this ill-considered project in the face of overwhelming opposition and damning evidence? It’s because the Trans Mountain pipeline is the only option it has left to get added Alberta tar-sands crude oil to tidewaters, where it could be shipped overseas and supposedly earn higher profits. After two other such pipelines had been cancelled, the federal government bought the existing Trans Mountain pipeline [2] for CA$4.5 billion (US$3.7 billion) to keep the third option alive. And it will cost Canada at least another CA$7.4 billion to nearly triple its capacity.

But the likely government decision to expand this pipeline is based on deeply flawed economic analysis. The demand for high-sulfur tar-sands crude is projected to drop when the International Maritime Organization’s global pollution standards become more stringent less than a year from now. All large commercial vessels must significantly reduce their sulfur-dioxide emissions by January 1. Most will do that by switching to low-sulfur fuels rather than the high-sulfur bunker fuels that have been commonly used on ocean-going vessels. And because Alberta tar-sands crudes have among the highest sulfur contents in the world, which makes refining them costly, the market for them is likely to plummet.

Moreover, Canada’s fervent hope that Asian markets for its heavy crudes will materialize is a pipe dream. According to a recent Greenpeace analysis, 92 percent of the current shipments from Burnaby go to US refineries, mostly in California and Washington, able to handle heavy, sulfur-laden crudes. That number is unlikely to change much should the expansion go through.

The Aframax-size tankers that can load crude oil in Burnaby and pass under Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge are too small to compete in international markets with the gigantic supertankers now plying the oceans. And Asian refineries have been reluctant to invest the billions required for the additional infrastructure needed to refine high-sulfur crude oil economically when lower-sulfur crudes are available.

The 92 percent of shipments to US refineries do not include the more than 150,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil that currently enter our state daily via the Puget Sound Pipeline System, a spur of the Trans Mountain Pipeline that supplies Whatcom and Skagit County refineries. These refineries will have to face the same diminishing markets for high-sulfur fuels — and resolve what can be done with all the sulfurous byproducts that will soon begin piling up.

In all likelihood, the added Trans Mountain pipeline capacity would be for nought. And Canadian citizens will be left holding the bag, wondering how they ever got snookered into wasting billions on such an economic dinosaur.

Janet Alderton is president of the Friends of the San Juans, a nonprofit organization working to protect the San Juan Islands for people and nature, including oil spill prevention throughout the Salish Sea. She is serving her second term on Washington state’s Citizen’s Committee for Pipeline Safety, a group convened by Governor Chris Gregoire after two boys were killed in the 1999 Bellingham pipeline explosion.



2 Comments, most recent 5 years ago

Konrad Lau · South Whatcom County
Mon Apr 1, 2019

Here we have another, well-written diatribe regarding the dearth of Orca in the local waters and the threats (real or imagined) to their continued residency.

I read the article and no mention was made of the continued, century-old dumping of human waste (i.e. black water and sludge) into those same waters.

Why can we not focus on the real, clear and present dangers presented to the wildlife now and then think about the other proposed dangers?

Nice article but I believe it to be misplaced effort.

Michael Riordan · Eastsound, WA
Mon Apr 1, 2019

According to a recent, authoritative NOAA report, noise pollution from passing vessels is one of the three major factors adversely impacting the orcas and limiting their population growth — the other two being, yes, toxic pollutants in Salish Sea waters and the dearth of the orcas’ favorite prey, Chinook salmon. We’ve examined the first in some detail and feel qualified to write about it, as well as on marine transport of tar-sands crude oils and on the politics and economics of exporting them. Other writers could address the valid issue of toxic pollutants.

Whatcom County residents should also be aware of the large amounts of sulfur that are entering the county via Puget Sound Pipeline system. These amounts will grow dramatically if the Trans Mountain expansion project goes forward, including upgrades to the Puget Sound Pipeline — which is now owned by the Canadian federal government.

- Commenting is closed -
A Venue for Citizen Journalists
New 33-unit project makes matters worse
Thanks to generous donations from readers, this site is renovated and improved.
Affordability has been a ruse for creating market rate housing.
Represent Us and Our Interests. Please!
Local action in support of a proposal to rebuild nationwide infrastructure
Who’s Superman when you need him? We are.
From Musk’s big investment all the way to local campaigns, political “contributions” will be re-paid. Here’s how.
Private banks are fighting hard to keep us from starting our own state bank. There’s a reason.
To be so manifestly unqualified and yet not be deeply aware of that speaks exactly to the very point of not being qualified.
Chaos likely to ensue. Catastrophe cannot be ruled out.
There is no escape from the deep-throated roar and the clouds of filth produced by these machines.
A perspective from a very old liberal political junkie.
Deeds, not talk, count on Veterans Day
Several days ago, I received the following from Veterans Service Officer (VSO), Liz Witowski, of the Whatcom County Veterans Program (items below in bold are mine). On this Veterans Day, the
An off-budget $5 Trillion National Infrastructure Bank (NIB), along the lines of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) that operated between 1932-1957, means low-cost loans and no additions to the deficit.
Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare. Medicare is there to provide health care. Medicare Advantage is a business, there to make money.
David Swanson verifies what Jon Humphrey has said for years: good internet access benefits people, cities, counties, and states.
Or perhaps tragic farce or farcical tragedy might be more apt descriptors. Pick one, or both.
After nearly 30 years online, and literally being one of the oldest blogs on the internet, Northwest Citizen needs a major programming overhaul. To do so, we need your help.
The top 20% of commercial banks in the United States control 95% of our total banking assets. Remember “Too-Big-to-Fail”?
The City has created another useless document ensuring nothing changes and mediocre communication services are protected.
Why a vote for Jason Call for Congress is a good vote for conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans. Yes, an unusual idea.
Heaven forbid our reps should attack the main problem, Medicare Advantage, head on. But no. They must nibble around the edges to give the appearance of doing something.
Morally significant double binds force doctors and combat soldiers into identical life and death quandaries, damaging their moral centers. To these two groups we can also add law enforcement officers.
Eric Hirst gives us a brief and clear explanation of the water adjudication process that is beginning now in Whatcom County
“Citing the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the paper  [Less Care at Higher Cost—The Medicare Advantage Paradox] notes that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have overcharged the
Aggressive citizen involvement carried the day.
Build-for-profit, incarceration-inspired housing is destroying our souls.
A 54-photo tour of the ruptured pipe area of the Whatcom Creek explosion taken in July 1999.
The last of the scrap metal is loaded on the ship and it will be gone from our town.
Below is an audio tape of 911 calls, emergency responders’ radio communications, and local radio coverage from June 10, 1999 when Whatcom Creek exploded in Bellingham
Whatcom County’s confusing water rights will be defined by court proceedings beginning now
The foam of secrecy hides all.
If not killed-in-action, they are still dying from the effects of their service in Vietnam.
Local presentations scheduled on a reasonable use framework for water resource management
Broadband-Washing: Greenwashing the Internet
Pacific Northwest organizers join a global campaign to abolish all nukes and push for a city council resolution to start
If the hospitals are smelling a rat, so should Medicare (Dis)Advantage victims (AKA enrollees).
With such a bank in place, we would likely not be scrambling around and asking Congress for rebuild monies, as we are now with the catastrophic event involving the Francis Scott Key bridge on March 26, 2024.
Port of Bellingham commissioners terminate last 13 years of ABC Recycling lease