If the Portland Pipe Line Corp. wants to pump oil from Alberta’s tar sands region through Vermont, the company will need an Act 250 permit.
That’s the message Kirsten Sultan, the Act 250 land-use coordinator for the Northeast Kingdom, delivered on Monday in a jurisdictional opinion.
“The flow reversal Project, for transport of tar sands oil originating from Alberta Canada requires an Act 250 permit under 10 V.S.A. § 6081(b) because it is a substantial change to a pre-existing development,” she wrote in her conclusion.
This opinion stems from a request filed by a coalition of environmental groups and residents in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. The coalition sought to verify that if the Portland Pipe Line Corp. was prepared to pump tar sands oil along its Portland-Montreal pipeline, it must first receive the approval of an Act 250 land-use commission. Act 250 is the state’s governing land-use law, which oversees commercial developments across the state.
Portland Pipe Line CEO Larry Wilson told lawmakers earlier this legislative session that he was aggressively seeking new business opportunities, including pumping tar sands oil from Montreal to Portland. Although Wilson’s company has not signed any contracts to pump this oil, Canada’s Enbridge Oil has applied for a flow reversal along one of its main pipelines. If approved, Enbridge would pipe tar sands oil to Montreal.
Jim Murphy, senior counsel for the National Wildlife Federation, helped spearhead the jurisdictional opinion request, and he has maintained for months that such a proposal would trigger Act 250 review.
“The Act 250 coordinator clearly believes that (pumping) tar sands is a change of use and presents a variety of risks to Vermont resources that conventional oil doesn’t,” he said. “To bring tar sands to Vermont would require a company to go through the Act 250 permitting process. Vermonters are going to have a say as to whether or not tar sands oil goes through the Northeast Kingdom.”
Murphy also said that a bill moving through the Legislature, which would require a pipeline company to obtain an Act 250 permit for such a change of use, is rendered unnecessary by this opinion.
“It certainly raises a big question as to whether moving forward with this bill is the right thing to do,” he said.
The decision comes after 29 towns in Vermont adopted nonbinding resolutions to keep tar sands oil out of Vermont.
Legal and lobbying representatives for Portland Pipe Line Corp. did not immediately comment on the decision.
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