[All] Part 1: Line 9: A National Risk

[water.lulu at yahoo.ca]

Hi folks
I got a new response from the NEB Freedom of Information request I gave for all data referencing "My Person" dated from  April 2014 to December 2015.  Here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=1.+A-2016-40+release+pkg+.pdf

In response I contacted the Toronto Star, gave a summery by phone and sent them two emails which I'll share with you.
It's a mountain of data but summered in two handy little emails to enlighten folks on how the NEB actually functions based on my personal experiences with them. 
Lulu 
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

     
----- Forwarded Message -----
 From: "water.lulu at yahoo.ca" <water.lulu at yahoo.ca>
 To: "edtbox at thestar.ca" <edtbox at thestar.ca> 
 Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2016 3:43 AM
 Subject: Line 9: A National Risk
   
Hello. 
My name is Louisette Lanteigne.  I was a delegate of both National Energy Board (NEB) hearings regarding Enbridge Line 9 pipeline. This line goes from Sarnia to Westover, then on to Montreal. 
What I witnessed at the NEB is online here. I built this webpage. https://piperisks.wordpress.com/
I read an article about how the NEB was spying on intervenors so I did an FOI request to find out what data they had on me outside the hearing process. They sent a CD with over 1000 pages of info. The documents were not all specific to me but it reveals the fact the NEB were monitoring the media including my twitter feeds since 2011. Many pages were redacted as well. That complete document is online at this Dropbox link:https://www.dropbox.com/s/h4x1m5fmo7b910b/NEB_DM_PROD-%23825868-v1-Release_package.PDF?dl=0

The document shows I was spied on by the NEB but it also revealed how the denial of cross exam was deemed a "success" by hearing managers. Here is an article about it in the National Observer:  http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/waterloo-woman-finds-neb-e-mail-lauding-public-s-inability-question-pipelines
Many of the pages in the FOI were part of the NEB's "Media Monitoring" and yet NEB staff clearly admit the board doesn't actually have access to these documents at all. The NEB staff stated that fact in this article from the Waterloo Chronicle. http://www.waterloochronicle.ca/news-story/5894295-who-watches-the-watchers-/
The National Energy Board is supposed to make their decisions based on evidence so why are they spending so much time, effort and money reviewing data they are not authorized to view? Where is their corporate mandate to do that? How much does it cost and why are they doing this? Does this kind of monitoring impair the pre-screening of potential intevenors like me?  
So in the summer of 2014 news broke out that there was a Hazmat 2 oil spill that happened in the Humber River on May 31, 2014. I was visiting my parents in Trenton Ontario when I learned of it. When I drove home to Waterloo on June 1st, I decided to see what the spill looked like and how the clean up was going so I drove there using the info disclosed from the news reports and I saw a spill still ongoing and there were no booms in place or anyone stopping this flow so I called 911 and the fire fighters responded. They said the spill came from upstream where someone dumped chemicals into a sewer but that doesn't match what I videotaped and photographed. It looked like the oil was welling up from site where I was. The distribution of the chemicals is in the form of a V. That would not happen if it were located upstream. It would have diluted already. Here is the video of what I witnessed. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFCQZ06Yw3o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8zPHfGD0k0'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrYqqLbVks4
It really freaked me out because I am witnessing the very kind of incident I was trying to prevent at the NEB. I just finished a process out of fear of oil spills in rivers, and here I wam watching a spill in the Humber happening before me. It felt very surreal. I gave my report to the fire fighters and showed them what I saw. They assured me they will get some booms up and they'll handle it so I went home. 
I followed media stories about the spill and they stated the spill came from upstream and that the chemical wasn't identified but I didn't believe this. It didn't match what I saw so I went back to the site on Aug. 17, 2014, I dug a hole into the ground beside the river and allowed the water to seep up and I took two samples and I found the same chemical in the water. It smelled like varsol. It created a baby oil like film on top of the water. I also found dead crayfish where I spotted the spill so I video taped everything from getting the samples to the dead crayfish. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxR-kcubOiwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaLK-1RvXcU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1EvMVt6v20
 I notified the NEB about my concern by phone and that is when I found out that nobody had ever made a report to them about the May 31st spill incident.  I was shocked. 
The media kept saying they didn't know what this solvent was. I found that hard to believe because they used vac trucks and you can't empty those unless you know what chemical you are handling. I actually spoke to a vac truck driver about this to find out about this.
So I secured the Toronto Fire incident report, the City of Toronto incident report and the Ontario Spills Action Report regarding this spill. I begged the NEB and the Ontario Spills Action center to please come and examine if the chemical is welling up from the ground because I found it in August, months after the spill. If it happened upstream it would have simply flowed by but this stuff is still here and it's in the dirt. I did my best but they both refused to test the area. 
 Once I got these FOI reports I found out that staff at the City of Toronto actually ORDERED staff not to speak to the Spills Action Centre. This is in the transcript of the spills action centre. Some of the data identifies the chemical as OIL. Others state it is unidentified. It took 3 days for the Ministry to get to the site. Scary considering it was called a Hazmat 2 spill. The reports also show the solvent flowed downstream be ause the booms were not wide enough to capture the spill. There are municipal water intakes downstream. All this data is online here; https://www.dropbox.com/home/Humber
So in September, just one month later, I read news reports confirming the fact that Line 9 changed ownership from Enbridge Pipeline Inc. to Enbridge Income Fund Inc. but at the time hydrostatic testing of Line 9 was happening. I wondered if the fellas working actually had a legal permit so I contacted Enbridge who confirmed the change of ownership. Then I contacted the NEB to ask if they had a CPCN certificate: Certificate of Public Needs which can ONLY be issued by the NEB. This document is needed to comply with section 74 of the NEB Act as well as section 21. You can't work on a pipeline without it.  The NEB confirmed there was no permit issued for the transfer of assets.  I contacted the OPP, the College of Skills and Trade, the Labour Ministry and two economists about this. The economists both told me this was not right. The others all expressed concerns but stated they were powerless to help. I decided to contact the Board Chair myself to inform him of the situation and to ask him directly for these permits. He provided two of them to me.  One was the original permit for Line 9 when it was first approved. That permit owner was Inter provincial Pipeline. The second permit was for the sale of the end portion of Line 9 to Valero because the pipe was to be decommissioned but to this day, there still is no physical permit binding Line 9 to it's current owner: Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Ltd.  Here is a website I built about this. The permits can be viewed here too. https://line9fiscalconcerns.wordpress.com/2015/12/
So after all this happened, I decided to make another FOI request in December 2015 for all documents referencing my person. This is the information acquired since April 2014. It's 400+ pages but it shows how the NEB handled my concerns. When it came to the spills, they chose to process my concern as a liability risk and focused on reassurances rather than actually investigate the physical pipe.  Many emails exchanged but nobody actually took the time to investigate if the damn pipe was leaking. It also reveals how much time solicitors spent on the CPCN issue. Many pages redacted so I can't even begin to understand what NEB staff thought of that concern. It's all blacked out.  There was clearly a delay of almost a year regarding my concerns for the Leave to Open process and the questions I asked about that. The FOI response is online here:https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=1.+A-2016-40+release+pkg+.pdf
So I intend to take this to the Information and Privacy Commissioner as well as my MP and MPP to get to the bottom of this. I want to know why the NEB does not feel it is necessary for the owner of Line 9 to actually have a CPCN certificate.
I want to know why the NEB felt permission was not needed to transfer the asset of Line 9 from the Canadian Enbridge Pipeline Inc. to the US Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. 
I want to know why the City of Toronto told staff to NOT talk to the Ontario Spills Action Centre during the Humber Spill. 
I want to know what that solvent was in the Humber River and why nobody tested the area after I found the same stuff in the dirt and water 3 months later. 
Why didn't anyone report the spill to the NEB when a Hazmat 2 spill took place in the Humber River?
Why did it take 3 days for the Ministry to show up to the Humber  River Spill?  
All in all, I feel like there really isn't any protection being provided by Provincial or Federal regulators when it comes to oil spills in Canada.  The industry seems to be running by it's own rules. When work is being done on a pipeline and permits don't even exist in the name of the company who holds that asset, it's a serious problem. This is a national security risk. 
Louisette Lanteigne700 Star Flower Ave.Waterloo Ont.N2V 2L2 519-885-7619






   

   
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