Inuvik (Oct 22/04) - The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline moved one step closer to reality Oct. 7 with the completion of the voluminous Environmental Impact Statement.

Prepared by pipeline proponents Imperial Oil, Conoco Phillips, Shell Canada and the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, the statement will accompany the four applications for pipeline and related development submitted to the National Energy Board.

Paula Pacholek, manager for the joint review panel that will make its recommendations to the Minister of the Environment regarding the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. - Jason Unrau/NNSL photo

These four applications are for the development of three gas fields in the Delta, the line and planned production field to be located outside Inuvik, the liquid pipeline to Norman Wells and the parallel gas pipeline that will continue to Alberta.

The seven-member joint review panel appointed by the federal minister of the environment will have to examine the statement prior to public hearings and its subsequent recommendation to that minister.

"Now the real work begins," said joint review panel manager Paula Pacholek at her office in the Inuvik Northern Gas Project Secretariat.

Part of the panel's responsibilities will be to ensure the statement addresses the terms of reference for the project developed by the Inuvialuit Game Council, Mackenzie Valley Environment Impact Review Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

Pacholek says Nov. 4 is the deadline for submissions for funding by groups wishing to participate in the environmental review process.

Communications manager for the secretariat, Annette Bourgeois, says the National Energy Board and the joint review panel public hearing processes could get underway as early as January 2005. However, she added that this would be the first of several such public hearing processes.

If the pipeline is approved, this would set in motion a series of applications for "specific land use permits," which would entail another round of public hearings, she said.

If all goes according to plan, these hearings could begin in 2006.