environmental performance

Biodiversity Conservation

A little bit of initiative can go a long way toward saving a lot of paper as the Calgary Office Environment, Health and Safety Committee (COEHSC) discovered last year when they came up with an innovative idea.

The committee decided to collect the banner pages produced from print jobs in the Calgary office and turn them into notebooks. In addition, they were also able to use several thousands of sheets of paper that were sitting in storage, leftover from an old print job.

That created a lot of notebooks and the rest is history. “Basically what this project does is take out one extra stage of energy consumption,” says Paul Millar, Supervisor, Corporate Administration in Calgary. “So instead of directly recycling all those banner pages, they can be used first and then recycled.”

The notebooks were used as giveaways at Enbridge family events as well as given away to a few Calgary community organizations.

Early in 2006, the committee proposed they take on the project. (See story on the Security page for more information about the committee.) They agreed and used the notebooks to acknowledge Earth Day in the spring of 2006. Each employee received two notebooks. As an added bonus, the notebooks contain environment, health and safety tips on each page.

“To date this initiative has given approximately 150,000 pieces of paper new life, rather than going directly to recycling,” says Paul. “All it takes is a little bit of environmental awareness and some creativity to make a difference.”

We view biodiversity conservation as an important part of responsible environmental management, and incorporate ways to conserve wildlife habitat into our project planning and maintenance activities.

We carry out detailed environmental impact assessments for new pipeline projects to comply with regulations and meet our own standards. These studies include review of potential routing alternatives and routing or work space restrictions to avoid, minimize or mitigate impact to sensitive resources. For example, in consultation with natural resource management agencies, it may be determined that minor alignment changes of a pipeline or modifying work space will potentially eliminate or greatly reduce both short and long-term impacts from construction. In past projects, this has included preserving old growth pines or avoiding specific locations of endangered species or their habitat, and similar reviews are currently under way for pending projects such as our Southern Access pipeline project.

We also evaluate water body crossings on a case-by-case basis to minimize impacts to rivers and streams. We incorporate environmental review procedures into all sizes of projects and provide related training or guidelines to employees and contractors.

Our performance

Mapping pipelines for species at risk

In Canada, some of our liquids pipelines are regulated under the Species at Risk Act, which provides legal protection of wildlife species and the conservation of biological diversity. We have mapped the Canadian mainline system, using digital mapping technology, to identify areas along parts of our right-of-way where there may be species at risk. We have further consolidated this information into a database tool that enables safety and environment staff to identify sensitive wildlife habitat at specific locations before our company undertakes smaller projects or pipeline maintenance digs.

In the United States, a number of our mainline segments have digital data regarding threatened or endangered species on or near our right-of-way, and maintenance activities are reviewed and planned to include appropriate avoidance measures or restrictions.

Restoring wetlands

In the United States, the environmental assessment we conducted before starting the expansion of our East Texas natural gas system showed our construction activities would result in the loss of some wetland areas. In line with regulatory guidelines, our aim was to more than offset this damage either by preserving or restoring wetlands. In this case, we made an arrangement with a private third party to restore 230 hectares (566 acres) of wetlands in Texas. Through this arrangement, Enbridge will pay the third party to perpetually deed-restrict the property as wetland, restore the wetland through replanting and monitor its return to an active wetland area. As a result, we will restore considerably more wetlands than were lost through the pipeline construction.

Riverbank and waterway conservation

Enbridge is committed to protecting the environmental integrity of waterways in and around its operations.

In 2005, Liquids Pipelines restored two riverbank areas in Ontario where its pipelines are located and continued work on a third. Working in conjunction with Parks Canada, we restored 25 metres (80 feet) of riverbank on the historic Rideau Canal waterway, the oldest continuously operated canal in North America, in an area where our pipeline crosses the canal north of Kingston. We put in large rocks to protect the banks from waves, landscaped the banks, and planted shrubs to preserve soil from erosion.

We also took the initiative to restore a 20-metre (66-foot) section of the banks of Hager Creek that is located in a green space in the City of Burlington. Our pipeline crossed above the creek, the banks of which had eroded over the years. Residential housing was starting to encroach on the area and we were concerned about leaving the pipe exposed. With approval from the city, we installed a culvert under our pipe for the creek to flow through, covered the pipe with soil overlain with large stones to protect it, and then restored and stabilized the steep banks of the creek with erosion control blankets and very specific vegetation to prevent future erosion.

Several years ago, erosion had exposed pipe in Oakville, Ontario, at three locations on Joshua Creek. It is believed the creek’s flow pattern changed sometime after Hurricane Hazel hit the Toronto area with devastating force in 1954. Following public consultation, we realigned 130 metres (425 feet) of the creek to its pre-1950 location. We have been monitoring the creek since carrying out this work and in 2005, we reworked several areas to allow the creek to follow its natural flow pattern. As requested by the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we will continue to monitor the creek in 2006 to ensure the flow pattern is maintained.