Kinder Morgan begins to vacate Burnaby Mountain drilling site

Kinder Morgan has begun the process of dismantling its pipeline survey drilling equipment from Burnaby Mountain.

The company finished its survey work at the first bore hole and was about to continue its work with the second bore hole. However, on Thursday, the B.C. Supreme Court failed to provide the energy giant with an injunction extension to prevent protesters from entering the drilling site. In addition, the judge has thrown out all civil contempt charges against those arrested due to incorrect GPS coordinates in the injunction for where protesters are not allowed to enter.

Without a court order and police protection, Kinder Morgan has decided to withdraw early from Burnaby Mountain ahead of Monday’s injunction deadline.

Protesters have disobeyed the court order over the past week and as many as 100 protesters have been arrested since police began enforcement. Policing costs at Burnaby Mountain reached $100,000 per day throughout the demonstrations.

According to a tweet by TransMountain posted earlier today, a helicopter is being used to remove equipment and supplies from the remaining work site.

Our crews are removing equipment & supplies by helicopter from the remaining work site on #BurnabyMountain pic.twitter.com/GWllYyiCzW

— Trans Mountain (@TransMtn) November 28, 2014

Kinder Morgan has also stated that it believes it has sufficient information from the completed survey work for submission to the National Energy Board.

The original plan was to drill a pair of six-inch diameter test holes to a depth of 250-metres to determine whether soil conditions could permit the TransMountain pipeline to travel under Burnaby Mountain instead of through residential neighbourhoods.

Feature Image: Mark Klotz via Flickr