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Just the facts wanted around pipeline protests

Environmentalists bring emotional paranoia to pipeline discussions

A celebrity hockey player recently spoke out against the Enbridge Pipeline project, located in an area he has likely not even visited.

The follow-up story was the announcement that the City of Vancouver officially opposes the Trans Mountain expansion project. Now the NDP have decided to hitch their wagon to the well-heeled environmentalists in opposition to both pipelines.

The amount of media attention given to the environmentalist agenda argues very strongly for the fact that there is a significant, organized effort on the part of this minority to block any development in this province.

Rhetoric such as “bulldozers plowing up mountainsides and rivers,” “the pipeline will destroy pristine wilderness,” “the risk of oil spills will bring destruction to the forests and wildlife,” is just that. No facts, no details, just emotional paranoia.

I am writing, not to whine over the well-orchestrated campaign of the “mentalists,” but to ask why no one is presenting the facts. Where are the empirical arguments that can be presented to debunk the environmental balderdash? I would like to know:

1. How wide is the pipeline right-of-way and is there a service road along that right of way for maintenance or emergency?

2. How many spills (that were the responsibility of the pipeline operator), have occurred in the last 10 years?

3. What was the extent of the spill? (gallons, square feet/meters)

4. Was the area permanently damaged or did remediation restore the ecosystem?

5. How many jobs (directly and indirectly) did the pipeline create?

6. What revenue is contributed to the provincial treasury?

Don’t you think the general public would want to know these details instead of the environmentalist propaganda?

Eli W. Fricker

North Saanich