Another rally is planned to protest Kinder Morgan’s proposed pipeline expansion. It will take place on Saturday, April 11 in Fort Langley.
This time protesters are going to march from McMillan Island to the Fort Langley Community Hall, said Kwantlen First Nation member Brandon Gabriel, who is once again one of the organizers.
He helped organize a protest on the side of the road on 232 Street on Feb. 4, which attracted a crowd of about 80.
“Join in respect of the unceded Kwantlen and neighbouring First Nation Territories, for a march and rally to celebrate our home and protect it from destructive oil bitumen projects like the Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal; proposed to see 890,000 barrels of oil travel daily through sacred lands and waters,” said Gabriel, in a poster that has been circulated about the march.
This march will begin around 12:30 p.m. at the Kwantlen First Nations sports park on McMillan Island. The group will march across the Jacob Haldi Bridge, then proceed south on Glover Road to gather at the Fort hall, where speeches are planned.
At the last rally, around 80 people arrived to protest across from a private property on Rawlison Crescent where Kinder Morgan was doing test drilling for the proposed pipeline.
Kinder Morgan operates its existing Trans Mountain pipeline, and it runs through parts of North Langley, Fort Langley, Walnut Grove and then heads west into Port Kells.
It plans to twin the existing pipeline, which began operating in 1953, through most of Langley. However, a new route will be sought west of Glover Road, to avoid taking the second pipeline through a developed urban area in Walnut Grove.
The pipeline is planned to divert from the existing route near Redwoods Golf Course, and go through the course to link up with the CN tracks near 216 Street and 96 Avenue. At that point, it will parallel the railway line.
Kinder Morgan is looking to triple its capacity for oil which would be piped from Alberta through numerous B.C. communities to the Burnaby marine terminal. Some would be used at the existing Chevron refinery, but the vast majority would be shipped as crude oil via tanker to Asian customers.