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Alaska Pipeline "Lesser Environmental Evil" Than Mackenzie, Says Sierra Club

Posted on: Wednesday, 2 November 2005, 18:01 CST

By BOB WEBER

(CP) - One of the country's largest environmental organizations wants a multinational energy giant to focus on building a natural gas pipeline from Alaska instead of down Canada's Mackenzie Valley.

In a letter to the CEO of Exxon Mobil, the Sierra Club says the Mackenzie project would create more environmental damage and greenhouse gas emissions. "The Alaska pipeline would be much longer than the Mackenzie Valley pipelines and carry three times as much gas, but is likely to cause less ecological damage," says the letter to Lee Raymond.

"It may be the lesser environmental evil."

The letter, signed by Sierra Club directors Elizabeth May and Carl Pope, says the Mackenzie route includes much more intact forest and tundra.

"The Mackenzie pipeline . . . would cause greater ecological fragmentation, not to mention harm caused by induced development along the pipeline route."

The Sierra Club also points out that while the Alaska pipeline would supply gas directly to the United States market for heating and power generation, the Mackenzie route is expected to power Alberta's oilsands.

"Alaska gas could conceivably serve to reduce North American greenhouse gas emissions by displacing the use of coal and oil, whereas Mackenzie gas used to produce tarsands oil would result in large increases in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions."

The letter adds that Exxon's Canadian subsidiary, chief pipeline proponent Imperial Oil, has been "singularly inept" in studying environmental impacts.

It also suggests legal complications for Mackenzie.

"You and your shareholders should not discount the potential for litigation in Canada, which could result in project delays and additional costs," the letter says.

Exxon Mobil is involved in two proposed pipelines, one from Alaska's north slope down the Alaska Highway, and the other along Canada's Mackenzie Valley. Analysts have long suggested there isn't enough money, labour and steel to build both at the same time, and that the second-place project would be delayed for a generation.

Provincial, state and territorial governments have all been lobbying hard to maximize benefits for their own jurisdictions.

Source: Canadian Press

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