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Recipe for Restoration
How alternative farming practises can revive soil along your right-of-way.
Figure 1: Soil Regeneration Pyramid: (Dr. Kris Nichols; KRIS Systems Education and Consultation Pachaterrae Inc.)
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n our farm, we are making 2020 plans with the hope of a better growing season than what occurred in 2019. For many farmers across Western Canada, May was abnormally dry; rain finally came in mid-June; July was relatively normal; and then Mother Nature had her fun August to October.
But farmers were not the only ones affected by the excessive late-season rain. Enbridge workers struggled to get the remaining topsoil back on the land before the snow fell, and unfortunately, were unsuccessful. The company plans to have workers back out in late May to move the topsoil back in place along the 100-km stretch in southeast Saskatchewan. But for now, the soil along the right-of-way and the piled-up topsoil sits exposed, including some of our own land in the Fairlight, Sask. area, along Line 3.
As farmers, we will need to take steps to start the recovery process. Whether your right-of-way was covered or not, there are things we can do to protect it come spring. I have talked about the benefits of alternative farming practices on soil health before, but it was not until I attended a presentation by Dr. Kris Nichols at the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association annual conference, that I had a ‘recipe’ for how to improve the soil. In her presentation, she introduced the pyramid on the right as keys for soil regeneration. 0
Reduced or No Tillage Soil Armor Manage Livestock Reduced or No Synthetic Inputs Diversity PRINCIPLES TO ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTAL WEALTH
Living Roots (Green and Growing)
SOIL REGENERATION PYRAMID
Living Roots Roots are like the glue that holds your soil together. Any significant disturbance, like that caused by pipelines, compromises the integrity of the soil structure. Living roots continually feed the soil ecosystem via interactions with fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms. From these relationships, the roots promote the formation and stability of soil aggregates. This then improves water filtration through increased porosity. Living roots require the plants above ground to be green and growing — harvesting sunlight. Our window of opportunity to keep things green is relatively short. In Western Canada, there are 120-130 frost-free days and usually 1200-1600 growing degree days, depending on the growing region. Despite these limitations, plants other than the crops we typically grow can utilize the sunlight earlier and longer in the season. Mixing these crops with grain crops or sowing land to perennial hay species can keep the land green outside of the short growing season.
Diversity It is important to consider types of plants, but also microbial and macrobial populations when promoting diversity, or biodiversity. Plant and microbe diversity are closely associated with one another. The different
carbon to nitrogen ratios of plants build microbe populations that break down residues and release nutrients back to the soil. As the microbe population grows, it also aids in the resilience of the soil to environmental conditions (soil aggregates) and can start to protect living plants from the threat of disease and pests. Cover crop mixtures do a great job of increasing plant diversity above ground and building the microbe population below ground.
Reduced or No Synthetic Inputs Resource intensive agriculture has become the mainstream practice for growing crops in Canada. While fertilizers and pesticides have been beneficial in increasing yield, recent global trends show a plateau and even a decrease in yield (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Global trends (1960- 2005) in cereal meat production, use of fertilizers, irrigation, and pesticides. (Source: Tilman, 2002; FAO, 2013; International Fertilizer Association, 2008; FAOSTAT, 2009).
The increased use of inputs has had a detrimental effect on the soil’s biological system — limiting the plants’ natural association with beneficial organisms. Reducing the use of these inputs can further assist in the regeneration of soil along the pipeline and encourage the development of more diverse populations.
Manage Livestock Mixed farms have moved to specializing in crops or livestock to improve simplicity and logistics on the farm. But for the few that do have both,
livestock is a great addition to improving soil health. Proper livestock management improves soil health through nutrient cycling. Nutrients from manure are often in a more plant-available form and also promote the increase in microbial populations. The stress caused by animals on the plant encourages roots to grow deeper, further improving water infiltration, soil structure and compaction.
Soil Armour Enbridge takes the first step in soil armour once the topsoil is moved back into place, by covering the soil with straw. While this does provide some
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early protection from the elements, it does not start the building process to knit the soil structure together. The best soil armour relates back to the living roots. Just like we protect ourselves from the elements with clothing, plants are the best way to cover the soil. More impor- tantly, plants are able to utilize solar radiation and water with heat to grow and in turn, feed organic matter and nutrients back to the soil.
Reduced or No-Tillage This one is already widely practiced by farmers. The western Prairies have benefited from the introduction of reduced or no-till systems through the building of organic matter and soil structure. Much like the dis- turbance of installing pipelines or integrity digs, any form of tillage dis- turbs the soil ecosystem with harmful effects. Reduced tillage allows the soil ecosystem to build up and all of the organisms to function in balance.
This is just a short outline of steps we can take to bring the pipeline right-of-ways back to life. While some steps may seem a little extreme, I encourage everyone to consider how they can change management prac- tices on their farm to improve two or three steps.
Andrea De Roo has a BSA in agronomy and a M.Sc. in plant science. Additionally, she is a P.Ag. with the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists. Andrea farms with her family near Fairlight, Saskatchewan, and now also works with South Country Equipment as a Crop Intelligence Agronomist.
Want Trans Mountain Expanded at Any Price?
Be careful what you wish for, because taxpayers will be eating the expanding costs of TMX.
hen Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced Ottawa would buy Trans Mountain for $4.5 billion, he assured Canadians that “this transaction represents a sound investment opportunity.”
Facts tell us otherwise. Add up every dollar Ottawa has committed to Trans Mountain since W
Morneau bought it and taxpayers are at risk for $20.7 billion the day the project goes into service.
Ottawa tells us not to worry. Trans Mountain’s expansion will earn money when it begins operating sometime in 2023. Except, those revenues won’t cover what Ottawa has ponied up. The shortfall is a subsidy of about $11.7 billion.
This is how the math works. There were two price tags for Trans Mountain. The first, $3 billion for a 66-year-old pipeline. The second, $1.5 billion for the right to build the expansion.
Ottawa borrowed the money to buy TransMountain and channeled it through the Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV) at an interest rate of 4.7 per cent per year. The principal repayment is due five years from the purchase date.
Trans Mountain is a federally regulated pipeline so the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) approves the tolls it can charge to shippers who send oil products down the pipeline. When
Trans Mountain sought approval for the tolls on the existing pipeline it failed to ensure those tolls would be enough to cover the $3 billion used to buy it. None of that principal and only half the interest expense is covered by the tolls, and those tolls are locked in for at least three years
The expanding costs of TMX they don’t want you to know about Canadians are at risk for the shortfall and this explains why Trans Mountain has been losing money since Ottawa bought it. The taxpayer funded toll subsidy amounts to $3.4 billion over five years.
That’s on the existing pipeline. How much will Trans Mountain’s expansion end up costing?
Morneau promised to tell us what the expansion would cost when he shocked Canadians by announcing we would buy it. We were assured that if Ottawa knew it was going to buy Trans Mountain by July 22, 2018, Canadians would be given an update on the construction cost. That date came and went.
When the project was approved by Prime Minister Trudeau in June 2019, we were again promised an updated cost, but none was provided. Trans Mountain CEO, Ian Anderson said at the time that “There is no update on the last estimated project cost of $7.4 billion.”
At its annual general meeting on December 11, 2019, CDEV’s chair, Steve Swaffield was asked for a budget update. He said “we’ll need more clarity on the project’s schedule before we can determine the costs.” It seemed very strange that the people responsible didn’t know the cost for the project but were proceeding with construction based on a $7.4 billion estimate prepared almost three years earlier. That is not how major projects are built. Either they were guilty of gross mismanagement if they didn’t know the likely cost, or they were guilty of misleading the public by withholding it.
Finally in February 2020, Trans Mountain announced the bad news. The cost to build the expansion, including contingency, had skyrocketed to $13.2 billion.
An increase of this magnitude might not be a problem if Trans Mountain could pass this increased cost onto shippers through higher tolls. The problem is, Ottawa decided to give the shippers a toll rate exemption on the expansion too. This is where the huge subsidy on the expansion comes in.
Ottawa capped the construction budget at $7.4 billion with only 25 per cent of the costs beyond that amount passed on in shippers’ tolls. What this means is that for every dollar spent on the project above $7.4 billion, Trans Mountain — and by extension Canadian taxpayers — bear 75 cents. At a capital cost of $13.2 billion, Canadians have been put at risk for $4.4 billion of the project’s likely cost.
Taxpayers at risk from hidden subsidies, too Then there’s the $1.5 billion Oceans Protection Plan which is a subsidy because Trans Mountain’s shippers told the CER they expected to pay any marine protection costs related to the project. Trudeau decided to put the cost on the backs of Canadians instead. Even at a pro-rata share for the West Coast, the cost is about $600 million, every five years.
We can’t forget the $500 million payment guarantee to BC. These costs are not included in the project’s budget, but Trans Mountain still has to pay them, so they are a taxpayer funded subsidy too. And then there’s the $1 billion that the CER requires must be on hand for inevitable oil spills.
The subsidies for Trans Mountain are huge. Adding up the components we get $3.4 billion for the existing pipeline, $4.4 billion for the expansion, $2.4 billion over twenty years for Trans Mountain’s share of the Oceans Protection Plan, B.C.’s accommodation cost of $500 million, and spill liability obligations of $1 billion for a total taxpayer funded subsidy of $11.7 billion. But there’s more because Ottawa is debt financing the cost of building the expansion. We need to add $9 billion more in obligations beyond the subsidies. We find that Ottawa is into Trans Mountain’s rescue for a whopping $20.7 billion.
When Trans Mountain’s expansion becomes operational Ottawa will have committed more than $20 billion dollars in taxpayer funds to the project knowing tolls will repay less than half. Hardly a sound investment when more than half the cost for getting this pipeline built will be subsidized by Canadian taxpayers.
