News
Enbridge given token of trespassing during council meeting
Sep 1, 2010, Interior News (Read article on originating site site)
By Rikki Schierer - Smithers Interior News
“There will be no pipeline here.”
Those were the dramatic words that ended a delegation to Smithers council last week with Enbridge representatives. Spoken by Toghestiy (Warner Naziel), wing chief of the Likhs’amisy Clan of the Wet’suwet’en, his words were echoed and applauded by others who filled the gallery at town hall.
Enbridge’s Michele Perret and Kevin Brown had been invited by council for a project update, especially in conjunction with the recent spill in Michigan, but before they could begin, the Wet’suwet’en members erupted into a traditional war song.
Throughout the delegation all remained quiet, however afterwards Naziel reminded Perret and Brown that Enbridge was told at a community advisory board meeting in December 2009 that the next time they entered into their traditional territory they would be trespassing. He then gave Brown two eagle feathers, a traditional token of warning from both the Likhs’amisy and ‘Unis Hot’en.
“This is the final warning,” Naziel said. “If you trespass again you will be dealt with according to Wet’suwet’en law.”
When later asked by The Interior News what that might entail, he said that it would be up to the elders to decide.
While a delegation to council isn’t usually the place for public comment, council decided to, in this case, let those who showed up go forward, Mayor Cress Farrow said. However, the manner with which they spoke to their invited guests was “inappropriate”, he added.
“It’s not appropriate to come into our council chambers and talk to invited delegations in a disrespectful manner,” Farrow said. “The goal is we all live in this world and we need to get along in a good manner. We can disagree, but it needs to be done with respect.”
He did say that they would be initiating informal discussions with the Wet’suwet’en to see if this was appropriate for all of their members and move on from there.
“Right now we’re not jumping on the phone or writing nasty letters or anything like that,” he said.
Enbridge told The Interior News that they were not available for comment regarding this issue until later this week.
Meanwhile council is weighing the facts before deciding whether or not they support the pipeline project.
“We’re still in the learning stages,” Farrow said. “The role of council is to always listen to what people have to say.”
With the review that’s going on, there’s a good two years for council to evaluate the situation, to see what the results of that process come about.
“Everybody is aware that we need jobs in the region, in the Northwest particularly that has been hard hit over the last few years, so mining operations, pipelines have to be looked at very closely. None of us want to hurt the environment but we do need to have jobs for people living in our communities or we won’t have communities,” Farrow said.
With that in mind, council invited Michele Perret and Kevin Brown of Enbridge to speak with council last week. The main topic of the evening was the spill in Michigan and what Enbridge has done or is doing with regard to that situation.
On July 26 Enbridge’s Line 6B in Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, U.S.
Enbridge reports that 19,500 barrels of oil were spilled, and today they have a workforce of approximately 1,500 people working to clean up the spill that Enbridge itself stated on its website had “a long way to go” before the area is restored.
“The cause of this leak is still unknown,” Perret said. “We have taken full responsibility for this still and we will be there working with the community until it’s cleaned up.”
From this situation Farrow said that he hopes to see new technologies developed by Enbridge to help with later situations, especially if they were to happen along the Alberta to Kitimat route of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline.
“Our wishes are that the technology would be improved to the point where this wouldn’t happen and if it did happen things that are going to protect the environment are developed so they can react much quicker and do a much better job of cleanups,” Farrow said.
Perret praised the emergency response to the spill while noting that the pipeline in Michigan isn’t comparable to the one that would run through B.C. because the technology would be far more modern for the Northern Gateway.