Dear Editor,
Thank you to John Mikkelsen of TCE for responding to my recent letter regarding TCE’s safety record. I have great respect for John. I have met him a few times over the past couple of years and I genuinely like him. He is a leader and a professional with great passion for the vision of the pump storage plant. Yet, I am in opposition to the PSP proposal.
In response to his letter identifying TCE’s commitment to safety with the proposed pump storage plant I have two questions for Mr. Mikkelsen.
John, you did not respond to the safety issues I raised in my letter. You wrote about your commitment at TCE to safety in the future on this project. Yet, after decades of experience building oil pipelines and TCE officials making expressed commitments to safety in the future, in design and in safe operations of pipelines, please tell me why TCE is responsible for 17 of the 39 major leaks in Canada during the years 1992 to 2014. How did that happen and what has been done to learn from those leaks and to make it so none ever happen again? Because, since 2014, leaks and breaks have happened again, and again, in TCE lines. For example, a large break occurred in the Keystone pipeline operated by TCE, of around 9,000 barrels of oil in November 2017, and again a similar break occurred in November 2019. There are others.
I believe you, John, that you are committed to safety. Unfortunately, history is the best predictor of future performance. TCE has a history of making commitments and then having leaks and breaks. So, tell me TCE won’t have another oil leak or break. Ever. And let’s see how that goes for a few years. When TCE has achieved no breaks for several years, then re-introduce the idea for the dam.
And please identify any similar reservoir/dam projects in North America where a 400 acre or larger reservoir and dam are being built or proposed to be built over the heads and homes of hundreds of families? Because, as important as the follow-through on your commitment is, it is ultimately not the commitment that will count. It is about the consequence to hundreds of lives, if you are the tiniest bit wrong.
Tom Buck, Save Georgian Bay
