gon share my final essay perils while i wait for the bus
so for my sociology of risk class i have to do a risk assessment of a health and/or environmental issue in canada n its kinda hell because im doing the trans mountain pipeline from alberta to the coast of bc and it makes me want to beat the government with hammers. like its crazy holy fuck it is SO DIFFICULT to sort thru all this bullshit around it like
im tryna focus on how oil spills are treated as a 'necessary risk' through an economic approach to these risks and im tryna tear that apart through the same reasoning that the govt and corps justify the risk by showing how actually spills are inevitable and so much more costly that it jus being somethin we can brush off. but holy fuck the history of this pipeline especially the expansion project is nuts. like.
it was proposed in 2013 by kinder morgan who owned it at the time and ppl obviously fought hard, the risk assessments and applications by the corp for the project were pushed back a lot cuz they sucked and because of bc's specific indigenous history of the traditional territories never being officially ceded to the govt the project was beaten to shit. it shouldnt have progressed. like kinder morgan was gon tap out and scrap it because they concluded that the risks outweighed the benefits
BUT THE FUCKING. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. BOUGHT IT. those assholes in like 2019 saw it wasnt gon go thru and decided to pay like 5.8 billion to purchase it, created new policies around pipelines and the transport of energy, made fuckin laws that they dont Actually need to obey local bylaws when constructin this thing, etc. and its so stupid like it wasnt gon work. the corp said it wasnt feasible both cuz a rising costs and activism n push back against the expansion. but the govt said Naw this gotta go thru.
and whats crazy is like. it has been such a mistake for the govt. like it was first proposed in 2013, then bought by the govt and approved to start construction around 2019. first estimated to cost like around 5 billion. but research by professors and specialists in the field estimated the CER (canada energy regulators) crazy underestimated how much it'd cost but ESPECIALLY how much it would spill and harm the environment, how much clean ups n the pollution would cost, etc. and they were right.
the expansion was only completed in may 2024. and it cost 34billion. the govt has been wanting to sell it and make it a privately owned thing again but no one fucking wants to shill out that much and its estimated to cost less than what they put into it.
alsoalso data analysis of pipeline spills especially of spils on the trans mountain pipeline show that Actually spending money on higher tech shit like scanning softwhere or corrosion resistant materials Does Not stop spills from occuring. it barely lessens it cuz reported spills have no rhyme or reason for when or where they occur and most often are just. inevitable
