EDMONTON (NEWS1130) – It’s BC’s turn to grill Enbridge on its Northern Gateway pipeline, as hearings on the proposal begin to wrap up.

Environmental concerns are at the forefront.

The provincial government has intervenor status in the Joint Review Panel hearings.

Environment Minister Terry Lake wants to know how spill monitoring and response will be handled, and how to ensure Enbridge would exceed world standards in prevention.

“We certainly want to clarify with Enbridge some of the comments made over $500-million more of safety improvements and what exactly will that mean,” Lake says.  “In terms of monitoring, in terms of response capability, how can we ensure that any proponent would have to live up to what we consider world class response and mitigation measures.”
    
It all stems from BC’s concerns over carrying the majority of the environmental risk while receiving little economic benefit in moving oil sand bitumen from Alberta to a tanker port in Kitimat.

The Alberta government is also on hand to answer questions about the financial terms and potential economic impacts of the line.

Kristen Higgins of the National Energy Board says heading into the final technical phase of hearings means the panel is now ready to take a more active role.

“There will be questions asked to people about evidence that they submitted and there will be opportunities of registered intervenors to ask questions of the proponents themselves,” she says.

The hearings continue into December.

Today’s meeting was in Edmonton.  Others will follow in Prince George and Prince Rupert.