Tamara PimentelAPTN NewsA winding bumpy dirt road leads to Janice Antoine’s sprawling farmland on the Coldwater Indian Band reserve where several two-feet-tall red cement poles poke out of the ground.They’re remnants of repairs to an oil leak on the Trans Mountain pipeline running underneath the property.It has been almost four years since Antoine and her husband, Percy Joe, learned of the “anomaly” – Kinder Morgan’s term for the leak – and they are still waiting for the Texas oil giant to properly clean up the site.They say the remediation work has harmed their hay harvest, cost them revenue and left them wondering how much the oil spill has damaged their property.“Four of those precious years and the use of this field is gone,” says Antoine. “I’m never going to get that back.” As the federal government, Alberta and B.C. wage high-level political wars over the $7.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, this couple from the 350-member reserve near Merritt, B.C. has been quietly fighting its own battle with Kinder Morgan.In August 2014, workers started digging into the site to fix the oil leak and test the area for contamination.“As it turns out, it was more extensive than they originally thought,” says Antoine.They dug a wide, open pit that raised safety concerns for the workers leasing the land and harvesting hay on the couple’s behalf. Since Kinder Morgan completed its work and covered over the pipeline, the couple says their land has not been the same. Noxious weeds interfere with the grain, decreasing the quality of their hay, and the once-smooth field has been replaced by rocks.“There’s going to be considerable work before we get back to having a full yield again,” says Antoine.The couple says the pipeline is not buried as deep and heat rises to the surface. A photo provided to APTN shows the property covered in snow – except for a winding bare path along the pipeline.The couple has asked for an environmental assessment to determine whether the giant pit impacted on surrounding wildlife, as it flooded with murky water. “We’ve not really had any answers to the full impact on our water,” says Antoine.According to a letter from Kinder Morgan dated Nov. 4, 2017, the company proposed $55,131 to cover the couple’s lost revenue over the years, including crop loss, land rental and Antoine and Joe’s time negotiating the issues.The couple has not signed the agreement. Antoine said she wants Kinder Morgan to do more work, like fixing the weed issues and returning “quality soil” to the site.In an emailed statement to APTN, Kinder Morgan said the Coldwater band won’t allow the company to complete remediation work on the site.“The incident being referenced is a small, contained historic contamination site on Reserve that was found in 2014 during routine maintenance work,” the statement reads. “We proceeded with remediation plans, as required by the National Energy Board (NEB) but the plans have been delayed due to an inability to receive consent by Coldwater for entry to the site to remediate.”Kinder Morgan has told the couple it will only complete further remediation work if Antoine signs a private deal that will give the company a right-of-way to her land.In that same Nov. 4 letter, the company says it will “mitigate and amend the soils along the pipeline trench to restore the crop capability similar to that on the surrounding field” if the couple signs the deal.Antoine says she can’t afford a lawyer, but the company has offered to pay for her arbitration fees.“They sent me a cheque which is still unopened,” she says. “At my age, I can’t afford – and I said that to Kinder Morgan – I can’t afford the high price of lawyers and I feel that perhaps that’s part of the leverage they use. They know most ordinary people can’t afford the legal fees that they enjoy.”Kinder Morgan’s additional work on the land is also “conditional on receiving consent and permission” from the Coldwater Band leadership.Coldwater has not signed a mutual benefit agreement with Kinder Morgan on the pipeline expansion. The band is among several First Nation communities, and the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, that have filed a judicial review on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. Chief Lee Spahan says the issue is “not if there’s gonna be a leak, it’s when there’s gonna be a leak.”“Our pumphouse is just metres away from the pipeline, which is a huge concern for the Coldwater band membership,” he says while standing by the Kwinshattin Creek that gurgles above the reserve’s aquifer.The existing pipeline runs through the reserve adjacent to the aquifer, as marked by the white-and-yellow Kinder Morgan signs. The proposed new line would run on the outskirts of the eastern side of the reserve above the aquifer.The chief would prefer Kinder Morgan reroute the line through the west side of the community, but is ultimately against the project if it risks endangering the aquifer.“The huge concern is the drinking water and we want to make sure that nothing, absolutely nothing impacts it because the source of the water feeds over 90 per cent of the community.” Kinder Morgan has created a catch-22 for the couple – sign our deal or we won’t fix your farmland.But Antoine says she’s not willing to defy her band’s stance on the pipeline and sign off on Kinder Morgan’s deal – even if it means remediating her property.“I feel that I’m caught between a rock and a hard place,” she says. “I certainly don’t want to leave this as a legacy to my children and have them feel stuck and just be left with something that they can’t fully enjoy the way they were accustomed to enjoy it.”Antoine has lived on that property for more than 30 years. She has memories of her children riding their horses and hiking through the area, picking wild mushrooms and berries with their grandmother.“There’s a wonderful natural soil up on top on the knoll for generations that used to be a very productive garden,” she says. “My daughter actually wanted to build a small cabin there and do some gardening and have that as a place to do it, but with the mess that’s here and the issue over water and soil contamination, I don’t know if she’ll see it in her lifetime.”I certainly hope she has that option.”- with files from Kenneth Jackson

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