GSX-US: GSX Sunrise

Bellingham Weekly
The Skinny
April 29, 2004

GSX SUNRISE: Last week we reported on the Washington State Department of Transportation’s plan to ram a ten lane freeway through the heart of rural Whatcom County north to south. The proposed freeway corridor—privately owned and which includes pipeline and power line rights-of-way—is designed in part to accommodate the growth of Vancouver and British Columbia.

This week we report on the Georgia Straits Crossing Pipeline (GSX), a privately owned natural gas pipeline planned to ram 33 miles across Whatcom’s norther tier east to west before plunging into coastal waters to service the growth of Vancouver Island.

Does anyone see a pattern forming here?

Whatcom County absorbs the impact of these projects but derives no benefit from them. Heigh ho, the tables get turned with the proposed Sumas Energy 2 power plant (which requires both pipelines and power lines), where B.C. absorbs the impacts… and Whatcom County… still receives little benefit!

In an age of globalization, when borders are becoming transparent, the only thing becoming transparent at the local international boundary is local control. The so-called “Cascade Gateway” is fast becoming a frontier no man’s land where privatization schemes are called out by dueling federal and provincial interests. What they intend to privatize already happens to be public or privately held assets ready to be gunned down by governments’ power to seize and condemn.

In less sophisticated times, this power was intended to create public benefit; today, it is mostly a taxpayer-funded servicing mechanism to transfer community wealth into private hands.

The proximity of international involvement at the international boundary means the feds can trump local jurisdiction at whim. Or at least try. With the current Administration, this generally means smashing open public assets and portioning out the goods to corporate pals. With anything involving petroleum or energy interests, this Texas-style barbecue roasts most fiercely.

Case in point, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled last week that the state Department of Ecology missed two key deadlines. DOE’s failure, they say, waives the state’s authority to control two permits necessary for construction of GSX. But Ecology officials say they didn’t miss those deadlines. They say that FERC approved the project before the state permits were completed, in opposition to federal law.

FERC says their claim trumps the state’s regulatory authority.

What claim? The commissioners pre-emptively declared jurisdiction over the pipeline, which crosses no state boundary; by extension the FERC also claims state and county governments have no jurisdiction. That leaves the environmental permit process as the only influence state and local governments might have over the project. Naturally then, FERC is eager to kick that inconvenient influence to pieces in the worst way, even to the point of ignoring written agreements and court rulings to the contrary.

The pipeline is a joint venture of BC Hydro and Williams Pipeline Company. Williams is the American company that will take the pipeline across U.S. soil. The pipeline serves no U.S. customers. The primary reason it crosses into Whatcom and San Juan counties is because rights-of-way could not be secured through B.C.’s dense population centers. In other words, a natural gas pipeline designed to serve Canadians might also kill Canadians. Lucky for Canada, the agencies responsible for pipeline regulation and safety in this country share no similar concerns for Americans.

Taken at face value, FERC’s ruling could remove all obstacles to GSX (‘obstacles’ being a euphemism for public involvement and democratic decision making), clearing the way for construction of the pipeline, which would carry natural gas from Canada’s mainland to Vancouver Island to fuel power plants there.

There’s more going on than at face value, however, which makes the FERC ruling a lie.

First of all, it is important to understand that there are no power plants on Vancouver Island requiring GSX fuel! The one plant on the drafting board needing GSX was axed by the Canadian energy board. In the co-dependent world of supply-&-demand, however, running GSX out to the island guarantees such plants will be built, to the tune of billions of dollars funneling into the pockets of the multinational energy cartel: Witness the siting of SE2 on the confluence of gas pipelines running from Canada into Sumas.

With the Big Lie firmly in mind, let’s take the little lies of the two missed deadlines one at a time.

The first slipped deadline involved Ecology’s efforts to get Williams to provide supplemental environmental impact statements within the timetable set by law.

Recognizing the time and costs involved in developing such supplemental statements, Williams resisted those requests. At the same time they changed the proposed route of the pipeline (which surely has environmental impacts) and meanwhile received scores of relevant public and official comment citing concerns about the design and impacts of GSX that needed revision.

The counties themselves have only had since January of this year to formally respond to these concerns as they negotiate with Williams. Both Whatcom and San Juan counties maintain that the pipeline is inconsistent with their shoreline plans, which regulate the effect of projects on local waterways and coastlines, San Juan more forcibly then Whatcom.

San Juan County planners have recommended that their county hearing examiner deny GSX a shoreline permit, arguing that their shoreline rules specify that pipelines are not a “water dependent use” and therefore are not eligible to travel through that county’s waters. A decision from the San Juan hearing examiner on the matter is expected this week.

San Juan commissioners also agreed with Whatcom County’s contention that the GSX route does not fall under federal regulation. In briefs filed with the FERC, the counties argued, “there is no interstate transportation involved. No U.S. domestic gas will flow through it.” Small concern to the commissioners, who’ve never met a pipeline they didn’t love.

While this activity continued, Williams reportedly failed in several key instances to return requested materials to Ecology in a timely manner; still the company petitioned FERC to apply to a tight timetable, making chutzpah that Ecology’s responses weren’t timely enough!

“Sometimes it’s hard to know where Williams ends and FERC begins,” one member of Ecology’s staff lamented, noting this cozy relationship between the company and its ostensible watchdog agency.

With all the slippage, Williams agreed in writing with Ecology to extend the deadline to from March 1 to May 28. That agreement was totally missed in the FERC ruling, according to Joan Marchioro, an assistant attorney general representing Ecology in the dispute.

Were the commissioners unaware of the agreement, or did they just ignore it?

“One conclusion is more charitable to FERC than the other,” an Ecology staffer observed dryly. A copy of the May 28 agreement was delivered to FERC and among the materials commissioners sifted through in making their ruling.

The other allegedly missed deadline involves marine permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Under the law and Corps regulations, the timetable clock for deadlines starts ticking the moment the Corps publishes its notice for such permits. The Corps maintains their deadline has not yet passed; FERC shrieks that it has and declares that the Corps also has no jurisdiction.

So rabid is the FERC’s support of this pipeline, they’re willing to go hammer-&-tong with another federal agency to deliver it. Ecology has 30 days to decide if they want to go hammer-&-tong with FERC through an appeal in federal court. They will.

Bellingham Weekly