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City of Burnaby ‘not reasonable’ in Trans Mountain permit process: NEB

Kinder Morgan is looking to triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline.

 Kinder Morgan is looking to triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline. Kinder Morgan is looking to triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline.

The way the City of Burnaby dealt with Trans Mountain’s permitting requests was “not reasonable” and resulted in “unreasonable delay,” according to the National Energy Board.

Those comments were included in a 26-page document released Thursday, outlining the NEB’s reasons for why it granted Trans Mountain’s request to bypass Burnaby’s tree-cutting and zoning bylaws.

Last October, Trans Mountain and the city came to an impasse, with Trans Mountain alleging the city was purposefully stalling the $7.4-billion project by not issuing permits. The company asked the NEB to intervene and allow it to continue work, a decision that was made in Trans Mountain’s favour last month.

According to the national energy regulator, Burnaby’s municipal staff took two to three times longer in reviewing Trans Mountain’s application than they had originally estimated. (The city had said it would take six to eight weeks for a more complex review.)

“Burnaby’s process made it very difficult for Trans Mountain to understand what the permitting requirements were and how they could be met,” reads the decision. “Burnaby repeatedly denied Trans Mountain’s reasonable requests to aid in an efficient processing of the preliminary plan approval applications (PPA).

“In the Board’s view, Trans Mountain made reasonable efforts to respond to Burnaby’s comments and requests for additional information and has, in fact, provided the bulk of this information to Burnaby,” the decision stated. “While some information that Burnaby requested in relation to the PPA applications is outstanding, the board accepts that Trans Mountain was not in a position to practically or efficiently provide this information in the absence of additional guidance from Burnaby.”

During back-and-forth between the two parties, the NEB found the city had not clearly or consistently answered Trans Mountain’s questions and provided unclear instructions.

“At the same time, Burnaby made its technical staff reviewing the permitting applications largely inaccessible to the company.”

While the city has argued Trans Mountain has been incompetent in submitting its applications, the NEB found the evidence did not support that argument.

The document notes the project has been federally approved to proceed, “after a lengthy review,” and “it is not up to Burnaby to stop it.”

More to come...

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