Canada's pipeline industry on defense

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OTTAWA, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- The Canadian oil industry considers pipeline transit to be the safest and most environmentally sound shipping method, a trade leader said.

Canadian pipeline company Enbridge touted its safety record as nearly perfect in a series of advertisements. Pipeline companies Enbridge and Kinder Morgan are among those seeking to develop oil pipeline networks in Canada.

Canadian Energy Pipeline Association President Brenda Kenny said, despite high-profile incidents, pipelines are still considered the best way to transport oil products.

"It is far safer and environmentally sound compared to any other option," she was quoted by The Gazette newspaper in Montreal as saying. "Until each of us chooses to walk everywhere we go we will be using pipelines for quite a while."

Pipeline defense comes as Enbridge faces backlash from a July oil spill in Wisconsin that came two years after the costliest onshore oil spill in the United States on the same network in Michigan.

Kenny said it would take nearly 5.5 million trucks per year to replace the oil pipeline network in Canada. Any defense from Enbridge, she added, "is absolutely not a PR (public relations) exercise."