In this country there has been a huge dispute over pipelines due to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) over both environmental and cultural concerns. Much like the DAPL, a Pipeline known as the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMPE) that would transport the most oil out of any pipeline in North America. Although much of this pipeline travels through Canada it also passes through parts of the Pacific Northwest in America. It has not drawn the same attention as DAPL although they are strikingly similar scenarios. Several of the similarities are as follows:
- Both Pipelines pass through tribal land, DAPL would pass 90 feet away from Standing Rock Sioux Tribe while the TMPE would pass through Sleil-Waututh Nation Reserve in BC Canada.
- Both seek to transport crude oil from one location to another and would be a large supplier of oil for America (for TMPE, Canada too)
- Both involve large safety concerns like the pipe bursting and contaminating water supply
- Both are essentially composed of a few major stakeholders: the government, oil companies, Native tribes, environmental groups and the people employed to build the pipeline
- TMPE crosses the border between the US and Canada and affects multiple countries and deals with multiple governments
- TMPE is actually larger than DAPL, since it deals with so much area, it is hard to rally protesters around the cause.
- According to the spokesperson from Kinder-Morgan they have received the go-ahead from 39 tribes and are simply struggling with Sleil-Waututh.
- TMPE is also not as safe as DAPL, because it is larger, there is less security that it will not spill. DAPL is controversial for not being safe enough to put in, but TMPE does not even guarantee that level of safety.