what's coming down the pipe...

The Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline was in town on Wednesday. They are doing community consultations as part of an impact assessment for the proposed natural gas pipeline. If the pipeline goes ahead, there will be oil rigs in the Beaufort Sea outside of Tuk and a link to the pipeline will pass nearby here. Some of the local companies will hopefully get contracts as the pipeline is being built and there will be lots of activity in this area.

The Joint Review Panel brought a huge team with them and a big set-up. I heard that they arrived in two planes to transport all of their equipment and people. There must have been 20 people that came in (about 8 on the panel and the rest are on the support team). They brought in their own sound system, photographers, and the whole hearing was broadcast on the internet. The set-up was a much bigger ordeal than I imagined.

Most of the meeting consisted of community members having the opportunity to express their concerns or ask questions to the Panel or oil company reps. It was inspiring to hear people talk about their lives and how the pipeline will impact them. As I mentioned in a previous post, most people here are supportive of the pipeline and want to work with the oil companies. About 30 years ago the Inuvialuit realized the forcefulness of industry and government and people started getting organized so that they could stand to benefit from industry coming into the area. Now there are a lot of people who are hoping that the pipeline will be built because it will bring them economic opportunities and jobs for people up here. At the same time, they are stepping forward cautiously and are concerned about social, health and environmental impacts. Some argued that the oil companies should want to leave a positive legacy for the people here. There have been debates about the route of the pipeline and over the oil consortium’s proposal to build another landing strip half-way between here and Inuvik. The Tuk residents that were speaking at the hearing would rather the oil companies use the airport here and build an all-weather road to the development site. If such a road is built it could be connected to Inuvik and effectively open Tuk up to south by land year-round. There would certainly be negative effects of this but a lot of people would like to see such a road because it would lower the price of goods in town open up new economic opportunities. A young man named Eric who got up at the very end of the meeting put things well:

“Why is it that we have to change our way of life to suit industry when it should be the other way around – industry should have to change to suit us”

He was referring the reality that the oil companies stand to make a lot of money from the pipeline but local communities will likely suffer more long-term negative impacts, rather than gains. The resounding argument of the day was that the people here should receive some lasting positive developments, such as improved infrastructure.

Yesterday (Thursday) was National Aboriginal Day and there were some celebrations here. There was a bbq, some traditional games, some non-traditional games, and a jam session that went well into the night. By the time that I left around 1:00 am there were only about 20 people left but they showed no sign of stopping soon. I could write more about the day but I think that this post has been long enough.