This week TMX started cutting multiple trees in the Fraser Heights area of Surrey (unceded Kwantlen, Katzie territory), to make way for its Trans Mountain oil pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby. The pipeline is being routed alongside the South Fraser Perimeter Road in Fraser Heights, before crossing under the Fraser River north to Coquitlam. The path is east of the Port Mann Bridge. The Surrey section of the pipeline will be 11.5 kilometers in length.
Former pipeline owner Kinder Morgan decided on the Fraser Heights route in 2013 to avoid neighborhoods in North Surrey, where the existing pipeline runs, over concerns of organized opposition. In a press statement at the time the company said:
“While the route choice allows Trans Mountain pipeline planners to dodge possible conflict with hundreds of homeowners who live near the current line, it’s likely to mean sharper focus on the environmental risk of a rupture that could send heavy crude oil into the river.”
The new route is closer to the Fraser River and increases the likelihood of harms to the river, and more substantial harms, in the event of a rupture.
Environmentalists have said that the TMX development will cut hundreds of trees from the forest and protected parkland in Fraser Heights. This includes a circle of seven old cedars and numerous other mature trees. The company started by cutting around 50 trees without notice on November 5. Direct action by Hummingbird Land Defenders stopped cutting that day.
