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Energy v environment in Canada
Bombs in the bush
Aug 13th 2009 | VANCOUVER
From The Economist print edition
A gas boom triggers rural resentment
SOMEONE is disturbing the peace in the remote Peace River
country of British Columbia. Since last October six bomb attacks
have been made on natural-gas pipelines near Dawson Creek by
someone demanding that their operator, EnCana, dismantle them.
Nobody has been hurt and the damage has been minor, but the
risk of a huge explosion is great. The latest bomb, on July 4th,
caused a leak 500 metres from where workers were repairing
damage from another attack three days earlier. In a letter to a
local newspaper the bomber gave EnCana until mid-October to
commit to a five-year plan to cease operations in the area, or face
larger attacks. EnCana has responded by offering a C$1m
($920,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of the
saboteur.
Long a bucolic place of fertile farms, the Peace valley has become
the centre of the hottest natural-gas boom in North America. New
drilling technology has unlocked two vast pockets of shale gas with
recoverable reserves of about 70 trillion cubic feet (2 trillion cubic
metres). A stampede of energy companies has snapped up exploration rights, drilling more than 700 wells
last year alone, and building pipelines. They have brought a bonanza of jobs and wealth to the area and to
the province. In 2008 the provincial government netted C$2.66 billion in sales of land and drilling rights,
and a further C$1 billion in royalty payments.
To the mysterious bomber this represents the destruction of a rural arcadia. The police take the threat
seriously. They have beefed up local units and called in a national counter-terrorism squad. A decade ago
more than 160 sabotage attacks took place in next-door Alberta, in protest at the energy companies’
alleged disregard for farmers, and particularly their practice of flaring gas to eliminate toxic impurities.
This was blamed for causing stillbirths in animals and humans. The police have interviewed one of those
responsible for that outbreak of vandalism (who was jailed for two years) but have eliminated him from
the current investigation.
According to Paul Joosse, a sociologist at the University of Alberta, the latest bomber, who he believes is
either an angry landowner or disgruntled EnCana employee, has tapped the locals’ resentment at the
disruption to their way of life. The energy boom has inflicted extra traffic on their roads and, say some,
seen property rights trampled, while many of the benefits go to the cities. As well as catching the bomber,
the authorities have some community work to do.
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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