It’s a project with a budget  estimated at $400 million. The environmental assessment work alone has cost in the multiple millions of dollars. 

The “Anchor Loop” proposal, which calls for the twinning of 158 kilometres of the Trans Mountain Pipeline that runs through Jasper National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park, is being evaluated by the National Energy Board, Parks Canada and a handful of other government departments and environmental organizations (ENGOs). With a public hearing scheduled for August 8, the reviewers have a busy summer of reading ahead. The project proponent, Kinder Morgan Canada (formerly Terasen) has presented literally thousands of pages worth of documentation, including 18 technical reports ranging from soil studies to a palaeontological review.

Ifan Thomas, responsible for integrated land use policy and planning for Jasper National Park, has taken the lead on the project since Kinder Morgan first approached the federal agency in March, 2004. The scope and size of the project is beyond anything Thomas has been involved with during his Parks career.

“The only thing comparable in a national park has been the twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff,” he said.

Parks has already submitted a long list of questions regarding the environmental assessment prepared by Kinder Morgan, and the company has responded. The process is far from complete, however.

“We will probably have another round of questions and answers before the process is finished,” Thomas said. “It’s possible that everything will be settled by the hearing in August, but maybe not.”

From Parks’ perspective, Kinder Morgan must provide a thorough accounting of how all negative impacts of the project will be mitigated, as well as demonstrating that the pipleline twinning will have a net benefit to Jasper National Park. Thomas said.

“The decision-making point will be that question about gains.”

Thomas has been impressed with the company’s approach to the project.

“So far they have been a good company to work with,” he said, adding that Kinder Morgan has provided many opportunities for the public and interest groups to be involved in the process. “They’ve gone further with this than I’ve seen in the past.”

That position is echoed by Dave Poulton, the executive director of the Calgary/Banff chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS).

“I have to give credit to them for their attitude and approach,” said Poulton from his Calgary office. “They’ve been a very receptive company to work for but that doesn’t mean we are being any less vigilant.”

CPAWS and other ENGOs have concerns over the impact that the twinning will have on wildlife movement and how it may make it easier for human activity to penetrate deeper into sensitive territory, despite the fact that most of the new line will follow existing rights of way through the park. 

Poulton feels that Parks Canada has been “responsible” in their approach to the pipeline, but said that as the responsible authority for a large portion of the planned project, the agency may have not been as “assertive” in advocating for stringent attention to ecological concerns.

“They’re in the position of being a... decision-maker in terms of granting permits and that may have prevented them from being more clear or assertive,” he said.

Thomas disagrees with this assessment, pointing out that Parks takes on a similar role with every project it has to review on an ecological basis before approving or denying a development permit.

“They’re not two separate processes, they’re one and the same,” he said. And, he adds, no final decision has been made on the Anchor Loop.

That may be true, but Jasperite Nikki Wilson has little doubt that the project will start as scheduled in 2007. Wilson spent six months working for ten ENGOs in a position paid for by Kinder Morgan.

“I was working to ensure that information was flowing freely between Kinder Morgan and these groups,” she said. “They (Kinder Morgan) took a very proactive approach, so instead of waiting for the formal review process to kick in, they went straight to the environmental groups.”

As a result, Wilson believes that the company has done all it can to ensure that the hearing and review process will go smoothly from here on out.

“I’m a little bit cynical that a pipeline of this magnitude would be stopped,” she said. “It’s going to be disruptive, it’s going to disturb predator-prey relationships, there will be access issues and there is always the potential for spills and leaks.”

While Parks, CPAWS and locals like Wilson and Jill Seaton of the Jasper Environmental Association seem slightly staggered by the scale of the proposal, it’s a pretty digestable capital project for Kinder Morgan.

“In the bigger scheme of things, this is not a very big project,” said Phillipe Reicher, in charge of communications for Kinder Morgan Canada. “It’s going very well, the process is moving along the lines of what we’ve been hoping to have accomplished.”

Having to prepare extensive and specific plans because of the protected areas the pipeline passes through has put the company in a good position, he said.

“It’s much further ahead than a typical pipeline project would be because we have had to make these specific plans.”

Putting a second line through the two mountain parks will likely be Kinder Morgan’s last chance to alter their infrastructure in this area. 

When the original pipe was laid in 1951, the Order in Council that approved the project included a reference to future looping projects. A key condition for approval of the current proposal will be no further developments, said Ifan Thomas.