Our primary focus when planning the proposed pipeline corridor is safety – for landowners, the environment and communities. With the aid of environmental, engineering and economic studies along with community input we’ve put together a proposal that follows the existing right-of-way for 73 per cent of the route. An additional 17 per cent of the route would follow existing utility corridors and infrastructure where using the current route would be more disruptive to communities or the environment. For the final 10 per cent it will be necessary to build the new pipeline away from the existing route or other existing utility corridors because of new developments such as homes and businesses that have grown up around the right-of-way since the original pipeline was built in 1953.

The entire pipeline corridor has been proposed with these principles guiding our recommendations:

• Community land use, including residences, commercial, recreation and parks.
• Environmentally sensitive areas including water crossings, wetlands and wildlife.
• Engineering considerations including public and worker safety, technical constraints and construction techniques, geotechnical conditions, pipeline length and the number of crossings of existing roads and utility lines.

With these principles in mind, below is a closer look at the benefits of the proposed Burnaby Mountain corridor.