The Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline should go ahead, according to the just-published report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project.

The project, according to the report's executive summary, requires approval of five developments:

•three natural gas fields, referred to as the “Anchor Fields,” located in the Mackenzie Delta;

•the Mackenzie Gathering System, consisting of gathering pipelines from the Anchor Fields to a processing facility near Inuvik and a natural gas liquids (NGLs) pipeline from Inuvik to connect with the existing Norman Wells oil pipeline at Norman Wells; and

•the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 30-inch pipeline with three compressor stations and a heater station, to carry processed natural gas from Inuvik approximately 1,196 km to a proposed interconnection 10 metres south of the Northwest Territories–Alberta border with new facilities to be constructed in Alberta.

The report makes almost 200 recommendations about the project, ranging from raptor protection to enforcement of liquor laws, and says those recommendations, if followed, would mitigate problems and make the project sustainable:

The Panel is confident that, with appropriate policy and regulatory initiatives and responses to manage future developments built on the implementation of the Panel’s recommendations, the MGP, and future developments that might follow from the Project, could proceed in an acceptable manner.

Overall, subject to the full implementation of the following recommendations, the Panel has concluded that the adverse impacts of the Mackenzie Gas Project and the Northwest Alberta Facilities would not likely be significant and that the Project and those Facilities would likely make a positive contribution towards a sustainable northern future.

In the Panel’s view, the Mackenzie Gas Project and the associated Northwest Alberta Facilities would provide the foundation for a sustainable northern future. The challenge to all will be to build on that foundation.

The report is available for download from the Joint Northern Gas Project Secretariat. A backgrounder is also available.

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.