Saint John's mayor hopes Energy East pipeline hearings resume soon

Saint John Mayor Don Darling is anxious for the hearings into the proposed Energy East pipeline to resume.

On Friday, allthree members ofthe National Energy Board's (NEB) panel looking at the proposedpipelinestepped down.

The $15.7-billionEnergy East pipelinewould carry 1.1million barrels of diluted oilsands bitumen dailyfrom Alberta to New Brunswick and would be refined in Saint John.

"It's a very, very important project for the city. It's a top priority for us to work through," said Darling.

"The NEB process is very important for us to have it move forward as quickly as possible, so we're interested in that ... We'd certainly be anxious to have the hearings back up and running right away."

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Welcome news for some

The marine program co-ordinatorwith the Conservation Council of New Brunswickwas pleasedthe panel members steppeddown.

"We knew something had to happen. There have been severe issues with the National Energy Board that have been noted by many for a long time," said Matthew Abbott.

"Of course, it came to a head with these issues over bias or perceived bias and the impact that would have on the process, so we thought the NEB had to take some pretty serious action to address these issues."

The council requested that members of the panel step down.

"I was pleased to hear that they had taken those concerns seriously," said Abbott.

Next step

NEB is working on finding three new panel members. Once those people have been appointed, the hearings will continue.

Abbott doesn't think that's enough.

"It's going to take much more than a Band-Aid solution andcertainly the time is right to do more than try and patch up a broken process," said Abbott.