Kinder Morgan pulls equipment from Burnaby Mountain
Kinder Morgan has begun dismantling its drilling site on Burnaby Mountain and will not complete the planned testing on a second bore hole, a company spokesperson told CBC News Friday.
Ali Hounsell said that it had taken several days for the company to helicopter in the heavy equipment, and that removal work needed to begin now in order to be off the site by Monday's deadline.
"We're disappointed, but we respect the court's decision so we made plans to remove the equipment from that site as the injunction expires midnight Sunday," Hounsell said. "We are starting to remove that equipment today by helicopter."
Though testing of the second bore hole will not be completed, Hounsell said the company is confident it has the information required for submission to the National Energy Board (NEB).
"Ultimately, it is up to the NEB to determine whether we do meet the conditions, but we believe that with the information we have been able to gather that we have enough information to meet those requirements at this point," Hounsell said.
"We know there is some opposition to the pipeline. But it's also important to remember that we are continuing to receive support."
On Thursday, an application by Kinder Morgan to extend an injunction keeping protesters away from two drilling sites on Burnaby Mountain was rejected by the B.C. Supreme Court, meaning the site was to be cleared of excavation workers by Dec. 1.
In denying the company's request to extend the injunction to Dec. 12, the judge also ruled that all civil contempt charges against those arrested so far should be thrown out because of GPS errors in the injunction specifying the exact location of the no-go zone.
Judge Cullen invited a lawyer for Kinder Morgan to file an application to vacate the charges. Company lawyer William Kaplan made such an application, which Cullen granted, effectively throwing out all of the civil contempt charges.
