Kinder Morgan to file court action against pipeline protesters

A protester who identified himself as George Khossi, left, bumps fists with a supporter as he lies under a vehicle being used by surveyors working on behalf of Kinder Morgan in preparation for the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, B.C., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014. (Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

VANCOUVER -- Trans Mountain pipeline has filed two separate B.C. Supreme Court actions in an attempt to finish its survey work through a conservation area in Metro Vancouver.

The subsidiary of energy giant Kinder Morgan is asking the court to issue an injunction preventing protesters from blocking its crews from doing work on the expansion project on Burnaby Mountain.

The company is also asking for damages and costs in a civil lawsuit over what it claims is trespass, assault and intimidation by protesters who chased away workers on Wednesday.

Court documents say the company's inability to conduct the field studies because of the protesters actions means its plan to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline will be delayed and cost both the firm and investors money.

On Wednesday, angry protesters confronted Trans Mountain crews on Burnaby Mountain. One demonstrator even crawled under a survey crew's SUV and refused to leave.

Trans Mountain is authorized by the National Energy Board to conduct the field work, and the company accuses protesters of trespassing at three separate work sites and verbally abusing work crews.

"The protesters, including the defendants or some of them, physically obstructed Trans Mountain and its agents by blocking their access to the site, and intimidated Trans Mountain and its agents through physical confrontation, and yelling and screaming abusive words," court documents say.

"An individual chained himself to a vehicle used by Trans Mountain and its agents and prevented them from safely withdrawing that equipment from the site."

The company said it marked out work zones with signs, but some protesters pulled the signs out and damaged them.

Other protesters erected tents and used vehicles to bar workers, making it clear that "if they attempted to perform the tasks for which they came to the site ... there would be a physical confrontation and that they would be physically prevented from doing so," the court documents state.

At the end, the workers turned around and left.

SFU English professor Stephen Collis, who is listed in the statement of claim as one of the defendants, was on Burnaby Mountain Wednesday speaking on behalf of a group calling themselves the Caretakers. He said he didn't witness the incidents described by Trans Mountain, but he finds some of the company's claims "absurd."

"So this U.S.-based company can take away my Canadian constitutional rights? It's a public park," he said in a phone interview on Friday. "I'm a public person, I can make statements, I can be in public space, be in a public park, but now I've been told I can't do any of those things."

Collis also said Burnaby Mountain is on municipal land, and it's not up to Trans Mountain to declare protesters were trespassing.

The injunction application and civil lawsuit is the latest in a bitter battle over Kinder Morgan's plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline through Burnaby.

If approved, the $5.4-billion dollar expansion plan would come close to tripling the capacity of the existing pipeline between Alberta and B.C. to about 900,000 barrels of crude a day.

The National Energy Board granted the company access to Burnaby Mountain last week, saying the City of Burnaby can't block the survey work because it is needed for the board to make a decision on the expansion application.

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan has said he doesn't believe the federal regulator has the authority to consider constitutional questions concerning city bylaws.

The city plans to appeal the ruling.