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LETTERS: Pipeline shutdown a lesson in supply-chain management

Editor:
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Editor:

What a month! All of the major highways washed out, the rail lines washed out.

Vancouver was essentially isolated, Sumas Valley was flooded knocking out our food supply.

COVID-19 had already given us all an overdue lesson on supply-chain management and the role it plays in our daily lives and now this disaster.

Then the Trans Mountain pipeline performed a safety shutdown for over two weeks, the longest shutdown in the history of the pipeline. This pipeline supplies gasoline and diesel to the Lower Mainland, and crude to the Parkland (the former Chevron) refinery. This refinery makes aviation fuel for YVR. Suddenly B.C. was faced with fuel rationing.

The possibility that we would not have gas for our cars and diesel for all the trucks that supply our daily needs was truly frightening. We had to import gas and diesel from the United States.

Where were the celebrations of all of the pipeline protestors now that nature had achieved what protests could not?

The pipeline was finally shut down.

However, everyone, including the media, were wringing their hands and praying for the restart.

When the pipeline finally restarted everyone was incredibly relieved – finally there is diesel to get food to the markets and everyone has enough gas to carry on their lives again.

This was another, long overdue supply-chain lesson for everyone. And the next time you choose to go on a holiday in your car, fly on a plane to a sunny destination, or drive your car to a pipeline protest, take a moment to think about the pipeline and the role it plays in your life. Think about those two weeks when it was shut down.

Peter Kendal, White Rock