Gulf spill creates public distrust of industry: TransCanada official
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Sandy Barnick's land near Glendive, Mont., is a long way from the vast and growing oil slick now staining the Gulf of Mexico. But these days, she feels as if it's just over the horizon.
The Gulf blowout happened despite repeated safety assurances from the industry. What's to prevent a similar disaster happening here, she asks, where a Canadian company hoping to build a pipeline for Canadian oilsands bitumen is using the same words?
"It just amplifies what our concerns have been all along," said Barnick about TransCanada's (TSX: TCP) Keystone XL proposal, now before U.S. regulators. "The verbiage used in the impact studies for that oil well down in the Gulf is almost word for word the same that we're getting regarding this pipeline."
She's heard the promises: Chances of a spill are minimal. If there is a spill, it will be contained quickly. It will not affect the environment.
But after the Gulf, she no longer believes them.
"Look at the devastation that it's caused. We're this little speck in the country trying to protect our livelihood. Look what's happened already down in the Gulf. If something like that happened, our livelihood is gone."
Barnick is one of a number of farmers and ranchers along Keystone XL's 3,200-kilometre proposed route whose resolve to fight the plan has been stiffened by the Gulf blowout.
The spill — and BP's response — has damaged the credibility of the whole industry, said Jenny Pelej of the National Wildlife Federation, who attended many of the hearings from Montana to Nebraska.
"It's about safety concerns and trust of Big Oil in light of the oil spill in the Gulf," she said.
It's not fair, said Robert Jones, TransCanada vice-president in charge of Keystone XL. But it's true.
"It's completely unfair to compare a public utility (pipeline) of something that we've been doing for over a hundred years to deep water offshore exploration for crude oil," he said. "They are not comparable.
"But as they see the spill, it does make people question regulators and the promises of big corporations."
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