In regards to your editorial on the Northern Gateway Pipeline (Gateway a ways off, June 26).
Personally, and with all due respect, I think the answer lies in Fort McMurray itself. Why not build the refinery right there, then the bitumen never leaves the tar sands. This would also increase the safety of our rivers and pristine wilderness. Fort McMurray could then become the distribution and recycling centre.
If we built pipelines for distribution of refined product, far safer and many times more lucrative, then the money we save not building pipelines for bitumen and the cost of not having to tanker oil back and forth across the ocean, could be used towards refinery construction, which would be in the neighborhood of $7 billion dollars. The other major benefit of this is that it would probably eliminate enough opposition to actually see it through.
Art Green,
Hope, B.C.