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Pipelines under close surveillance

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January 28, 2016

Pipelines cause a lot of environmental concerns and the National Energy Board is under scrutiny. Let's see how the new standards will change current practices.

“Even though pipelines that are built in the country must meet certain requirements, there is not enough monitoring done to know if they are being met. This is the conclusion reached by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development of Canada in her most recent report, released this week ”.

Source: Radio-Canada

The next activities will introduce students to the issues related to the installation of pipelines as well as its environmental impact in addition to the monitoring standards expected by the population.

Goals

At the end of the activities, the student will be able to:

- Explain the stages of pipeline installations;
- Summarize the report of the Commissioner of the Environment;
- Debate by personifying the different actors in the pipeline file.

Suggested Activities

ACTIVITY 1: Pipeline installation

Begin this activity by asking students questions to find out what they know about pipelines and oil pipelines in general.

Present this short video explanatory note relating the main stages of the installation of this type of installation. Use this following TNI file to put the steps back in order:

End the activity by asking students to name the different tools and machinery used by workers during pipeline installations.

ACTIVITY 2: Unattended pipelines

Present the video report of this item in order to put this activity in context. Then read the various shortcomings raised by the Commissioner of the Environment which are detailed in the same cuff.

Distribute a copy of this log so that students can record information related to poorly monitored pipelines.

ACTIVITY 3: Pipelines: small slips, big nuances

Display it blog post following in order to take into account the nuances brought by this journalist in connection with the report of the Commissioner of the Environment.

Organize a debate with the students. Divide them into small groups and ask them to come up with between 5 and 10 arguments and counter-arguments in preparation for the upcoming debate. Students could personify the various stakeholders in this file.

Here are specific examples that could offer a variety of conversations between students:
- The Prime Minister's team;
- The commissioner's team;
- ONE supervisors;
- The citizens.