
Following a logging road along the Kitimat River through rolling, avalanche-prone valleys, I saw a grizzly bear for the first time in my life. Construction has severed a landscape of glaciers, young and old growth forests, wild berries, mountainside waterfalls, and habitat for animals like the grizzly and their exceptional cousin the spirit bear. A long, narrow pipeline corridor—which could eventually be leased by multiple corporations—has already been clear-cut. Heaps of discarded trees, stacked in burn piles, await incineration by Chevron’s contractors.
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“There is a barrage of oil and gas developments being proposed in this whole North West and if they were successful we would see a wasteland development. We wouldn’t see a build-up of community development,” argues Mel Bazil, a resident of Hazelton and long-term supporter of the Unist’ot’en Camp blockade. “It comes with forms of violence: domestic violence, a large influx of drugs, missing and murdered women, and pollution.”Although tar sands infrastructure—like Northern Gateway—has attracted far more attention and public vitriol than any LNG project, a recently leaked document shows that the furthest developed piece of ‘LNG’ infrastructure, Chevron’s Pacific Trails Pipeline, could be used to export diluted bitumen from the tar sands instead of gas.In a letter penned by Chevron VP Rod Maier and leaked from the Moricetown band, the company seeks permission in negotiations with Moricetown First Nation to sell their pipeline “to any company constructing or actively seeking permits for an oil or bitumen pipeline along the corridor occupied by the PTP pipeline” after “a period of five years.” At 42 inches in diameter, PTP dwarfs Northern Gateway, Keystone XL, and Line 9 in size, making it one of the largest potential bitumen pipelines in North America.
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Land is already cleared for export facilities, pipe yards, and worker camps in communities like Kitimat and Terrace, while helicopter traffic has become ceaseless along the proposed pipeline right of ways. Increasingly, crews are surveying land and conducting preliminary fieldwork for new pipelines, in many cases prior to having their projects approved.“When I moved here two-three years ago there was only 2 or 3 proposed pipelines—now, I’ve even lost count how many. More than 10 for sure,” a resident of Hazelton, Darko Košćal, told me. We spoke in his backyard and our conversation was drowned out by a helicopter. “Since last spring it’s started being very noisy and every day it’s becoming noisier and noisier,” he shouted. “More helicopters than in Vancouver some days.”For Chevron’s PTP, enormous clearings await workers and construction materials at the entrances of the Clore and Kitimat River logging roads. For months, however, these have sat empty as “the pipeline company itself has not yet made any final investment decisions,” Bob Rae said. Chevron, which seeks to connect their fracking fields in northeastern BC to the Pacific, has been unable to secure any international customers for their gas.
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“That’s who’s in charge of their shares now and that’s who we’re up against,” Toghestiy said. “Chevron’s the last man standing.”The “high cost environment” of BC’s oil and gas sector is compounded by the province’s unique land-rights situation. Most of the province is unceded indigenous land, meaning it was never absorbed into Canada through treaties, bills of sale, surrender, or war. Accordingly, the federal and provincial governments lack clear legal authority to build any of these projects without consent from affected indigenous peoples.
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Following instruction from the province, the project is wrongly treating band councils created by the Government of Canada through the Indian Act, who only govern small reservations, as having the ability to make decisions over vast, unsurrendered territories that are managed by traditional, hereditary leaders.FNLP has signed deals with fifteen band councils and is still hoping to secure support from Moricetown. Significantly, the leaked document notes, the PTP pipeline can’t be converted to carry oil “without the consent of FNLP members”—all of whom are band councils who have no jurisdiction in the area these decisions are affecting.“These people have been so oppressed and now they’re given the opportunity to make decisions outside their own borders, outside the reserves,” said Ambrose Williams, a Gitxsan supporter of the Unist’ot’en. “When you give that much power to an oppressed people, they’ll start signing deals.”When asked why PTP is consulting with band councils instead of the hereditary leaders the Supreme Court of Canada recognized as having jurisdiction over Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan, FNLP chairman Bob Rae deflected responsibility. “There are issues of internal governance that are really up to the First Nations to sort out. We’re being very respectful of the jurisdiction of the First Nations,” he said.
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Currently, only clan-approved hunting, logging, and tree-planting operations, known Unist’ot’en supporters, and those who pass through a protocol of free, prior, and informed consent, are permitted to cross the bridge.The leak also outlines the financial benefits offered to Moricetown for their support of PTP. Notably, they are promised “preferred access to employment opportunities,” training incentives, contracts for aboriginal businesses, and $20.4 million paid out to the band over 35 years.After a $1.1 million signing bonus, payments amount to just over $550,000 per year or approximately $286 per band member. Having formerly worked as the band’s Economic Development Officer, Freda Huson warns that under the government’s current policies every additional dollar the band makes from PTP could cause the government to withdraw a dollar of funding.“The crumbs they’re throwing at band councils are going to come and go and the people that are going to suffer the most are the children,” Huson said. “They’re the ones that are going to suffer when there’s no clean water. They’re the ones that are going to suffer when there’s no fish, no moose.”“We’re doing everything in our part to ensure that doesn’t happen here.”@m_tol