Enbridge gets OK for Alberta pipeline

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CALGARY, Alberta, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A Canadian regulator announced it gave approval for pipeline company Enbridge to build a 400-mile pipeline to carry oil sands to British Columbia.

The independent Energy Resources Conservation Board, a provincial agency in Alberta, announced approval of plans for Enbridge for its Woodland project to a terminal in Edmonton. The project "would bring additional crude oil transportation capacity into the Edmonton area by 2014," the company said.

"A number of parties objected to the applications but after Enbridge altered the proposed route of the pipeline, several landowners withdrew their objections," the regulator said.

The ERCB, in an 18-page finding, said the project would run parallel to several existing pipelines.

"The board notes that Enbridge stated that it needs the pipeline to support growing bitumen production," the report states.

The project is smaller than the $6 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline planned by Enbridge.

Critics of Northern Gateway have expressed concern about the environmental risk from any potential spill. A 2010 release of the same type of crude oil from an Enbridge pipeline in Michigan was the costliest onshore spill in U.S. history.