B.C. farmers face third year of crop loss as Trans Mountain pipeline project drags on

The Trans Mountain Pipeline runs behind Mulder’s house and chicken barns near the Fraser River in Abbotsford. Beyond a child’s swing set, mounds of topsoil follow a trench holding the pipes that cut across his property — and 1,733 other tracts of private land between Edmonton, Alberta and the Burnaby terminal.

Delays mean the project could impact Mulder’s crops for a third year.

“I think government regulations are the main hold-up,” he said. “Trans Mountain is good to work with, but the project has taken a long time.”

The Trans Mountain Pipeline is Canada’s only pipeline transporting oil from Alberta to the West Coast. Its expansion will boost the line’s capacity to 890,000 barrels per day from 300,000 currently.

But the project has been plagued by difficulties. The pipeline was bought by the federal government for $4.5 billion in 2018 after previous owner Kinder Morgan Canada threatened to scrap the expansion in the face of environmentalist opposition and regulatory hurdles.

Its projected pricetag has since spiralled, first to $12.6 billion, then to $21.4 billion, and most recently to $30.9 billion, according to the most recent capital cost estimates.

A Trans Mountain spokesperson said heading into winter, the pipeline expansion project is more than 97 per cent complete, with pipe in the ground through Metro Vancouver.

But three kilometres of pipe still needs to be laid in the Coquihalla/Hope region and the Lower Mainland, including Abbotsford.