For the second straight day, protestors set up shop Friday at an Enbridge pipeline site south of Cambridge.
The protests began Thursday morning, when a group arrived at the site – east of Highway 24 in North Dumfries Township, near Lockie Road – saying Six Nations had not been properly consulted about the work Enbridge was doing.
Enbridge’s workers agreed to leave the site, where they were inspecting the Line 9 bitumen pipeline to determine if it needed any maintenance.
Overnight, tents were set up at the site as protestors made it clear they didn’t intend for their presence to be a one-day affair.
Friday, they said they had no plans to pack up shop anytime soon.
“This site will remain a point of interest for activists and for Six Nations until due process has been observed,” protestor Wolfgang Chrapko told CTV News.
“Enbridge has said that they have done consultation, but … it’s not up to Enbridge to determine whether people on Six Nations feel as though they were duly consulted."
An Enbridge spokesperson said the company had already spoken to representatives of the Six Nations community before beginning its work.
“We met with a Six Nations representative teem as recently as last week. At that time they had no questions or concerns and we have followed up to ensure that remains the case,” Graham White said in an email.
Enbridge plans to start pushing heavier crude oil through Line 9, which runs from Sarnia to Montreal, and increase its flow from 240,000 barrels per day to 300,000.
Protestors said they were concerned about the impact of that change on land and water around the pipeline.
Tiziana Camirand, who lives on the normally quiet court near the pipeline, said she was concerned about environmental issues, but wants to see any necessary work on the pipeline completed and doesn’t like the disruptions to her life.
“They’re in the front and in the back, so that’s kind of scary – there’s strangers outside our home,” she said.
Requests for comment from officials in Six Nations were not immediately returned.
