Concerned Citizens regarding TransCanada East Energy Pipeline
News Release
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Residents of North Bay are joining in the National Day of Action (against tar sands pipelines) this Saturday to defend their drinking water. TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline is routed to bring tar sands bitumen through North Bay and right through the municipal drinking water source. This has been a wake up call for many. The residents began actively campaigning to protect their own water and soon got educated about the horrendous disregard the tar sands industry has for all water.
WHEN/WHERE:
Olmsted Beach, Lakeside Drive
Saturday November 16th @ 1:00pm
www.facebook.com/events/226826934145044
This past Tuesday North Bay residents filled the City Council chambers and gave presentations to Council focussing on the economic impact on the City in the event of a spill and the threat to our drinking water source. Their presence and presentations were warmly received by council, many of whom shared in concern.
This morning (November 15th), Mayor Al McDonald was interviewed about the pipeline on CBC's Morning North and announced he will register intervenor status with the National Energy Board for TransCanada's Energy East pipeline. He indicated he wished to bring forward his concerns about this pipeline and protect municipal drinking water.
The citizens of North Bay have really rallied around this cause and been very vocal about this issue. An action preformed at TransCanada's open house community consultation (where concerned citizens we able to “out-friendly” their opposition and turn TransCanada’s PR event into a discussion of the threats and risks this pipeline brings) became a national movement with 15 other communities replicating it: www.save-canada.com . The video the local group made about their action went viral with 20,000 views in the first 30 days.
“The very real potential of a tar sands pipeline ruining your drinking water is pretty heavy stuff,” says community organizer Yan Roberts, “combine that with all of the terrible facts folks learn about the tar sands in general and people can get so full of fear that they seize up. The people of North Bay have chosen to not get depressed and instead get mobilized. You might expect a sombre mood at a pipeline opposition action, but here you’ll see just the opposite. They will defeat the pipeline with positive energy.”
At 1.1 million barrels per day, the Energy East Pipeline would allow overzealous expansion of the tar sands, and the fixed infrastructure of a pipeline would lock in dirty oil development.
“Local concerns first tune people in, but soon afterward, they become aware of their global responsibility,” Roberts says. “When this pipeline conversion was first announced, every local coffee shop was abuzz with concerns that people had about the threats this tar sands pipeline brought to our water here in North Bay. Now anywhere you go you’ll also overhear conversations about climate change and the horrors our community would enable to happen elsewhere if we allow this pipeline to go through. This pipeline has brought conversations about the climate crisis to coffee shops in small town Northern Ontario, that’s incredible! People feel the responsibility to do something.”
Like many other communities along a pipeline route, the folks in North Bay see this as an invitation for regular people to become part of the conversation about the tar sands, the related climate crisis, and about protecting water. On Saturday, they will take part in the National Day of Action down on the waterfront of Trout Lake, where the town gets its drinking water from, and where the Energy East Pipeline would pass through.
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