Tell Banks: Stop Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline

Homes evacuated after ExxonMobil oil pipeline spill in Arkansas

22 banks have just agreed to finance Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion to the tune of $5.5 billion Canadian. The expansion will be a disaster for Indigenous rights and the environment. It would make the pipeline able to transport more oil than either the Dakota Access Pipeline or the Keystone Pipeline.

Email the CEOs of these banks and tell them to stop financing Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and all tar sands projects. 

The Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and Sto:lo First Nations, whose territories cover most of Metro Vancouver Area, are among the nine First Nations and Tribes currently in litigation against the project. The Coast Salish, Sto:lo, Nlaka'pamux, and Secwepemc Nations, whose territories cover more than half the length of the pipeline, have also filed legal challenges to the project. The Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, which comprises more than 120 First Nations and Tribes, stands in committed opposition to all tar sands pipelines crossing their traditional lands and waters, and has called for an international campaign to divest from any financial institution that funds them.

At the TD Bank shareholder meeting in March, Chief Serge Simon of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake said "Coordinated Indigenous opposition from Quebec to British Columbia to North Dakota will stop the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline one way or another." But TD Bank didn’t listen to this warning — instead they poured more money into the project. They weren’t counting on resistance to tar sands pipelines across North America growing stronger every day.

This pipeline would cut through the Canadian Rocky Mountains, crossing and threatening countless watersheds that feed into the Fraser River. It would dump out on the Burrard Inlet near Vancouver, meaning a sevenfold increase in oil tanker traffic — from five to 34 ships every month — threatening marine life, including the endangered orcas of the Salish Sea.

The tar sands oil that this pipeline would carry is one of the most carbon intensive fuels on the planet. Studies show that the Trans Mountain expansion would add 8.8 metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere a year — making catastrophic climate change more of a reality every day.

And the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline already has a disgraceful track record — 82 leak incidents, including four major oil spills. 

- Ruth Breech, Rainforest Action Network

Sources:

1. 28 major banks warned not to finance Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, Rainforest Action Network
2. The Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion
3. B.C. First Nations unite in fight against Trans Mountain pipeline, The Globe and Mail
4. Kinder Morgan Canada completes IPO for Trans Mountain Pipeline, FuelFix / The Houston Chronicle
5. Spill History, Trans Mountain
6. Big oil v orcas: Canadians fight pipeline that threatens killer whales on the brink, The Guardian