FortisBC is proposing to clear as much as one-and-a-half ice rinks worth of land in the Squamish Estuary for temporary testing holes.
The energy company has its eye on running a 24-inch natural gas pipeline from Eagle Mountain, under the Skwelil’em Wildlife Management Area to the proposed Woodfibre liquefied natural gas facility in Howe Sound.
“The plan is to go under [the Estuary] with a horizontal drill,” the pipeline expansion’s project manager James Lota said at a public presentation Thursday, Sept. 25.
But before FortisBC can adopt the trenchless method, the company needs to test the ground’s stability. As a result, three testing holes need to be drilled in the wildlife management area, two on the dike and one at the entrance to the area. The locations of the boreholes were selected to minimize the impact to the environment, Lota said.
The holes will be 10 inches in diameter and as deep as two telephone poles. In order to get the equipment in place and comply with the province’s worker safety standards, FortisBC will need to clear an area roughly the size of half an ice rink around each testing site, Lota said. Officials plan to use helicopters for the drilling process, which minimizes the amount of clearing required, he noted.
“We will replant with native vegetation,” Lota said, any byproducts from the equipment will be flown out of the area.
The pipeline goes through the wildlife management area, but avoids Squamish Nation traditional land on the other side of the Squamish River, Lota said.
“We’ve gone to great lengths to avoid the culturally sensitive area,” he said, adding the company will adhere to all the government’s environmental standards.
Squamish resident Kimberley Armour wasn’t sold on the pipeline’s proposed pathway. She questioned why the new pipeline wouldn’t follow the path of the existing 10-inch line that continues on to Vancouver Island. It crosses the river further north, away from the main region of the estuary.
The testing may sound shocking, but Squamish residents should be aware that the municipality is considering building a road – the Seventh Avenue connector – though the estuary, Squamish environmental activist John Buchanan warned. That said, he questioned why FortisBC officials would proceed with any testing when the pipeline is based on the approval of Woodfibre Natural Gas – a project in its infancy.
“Why would you go ahead at all until the community has decided if we want this or not?” he said.
FortisBC is temporarily renting space at the former BC Rail lands to store its drilling equipment, the project director Arthur Kanzaki said. The company is hoping to secure further property within the site if the pipeline moves forward. FortisBC needs a long area, approximately 10 metres wide, where it can piece together the pipeline, he said. The company will be in contact with neighbouring businesses to ensure no disruption to their operations, Kanzaki said.
“If we can’t mitigate it then we have to negotiate compensation,” he said.
