TransCanada Needs Your Paper Clips

Some of TransCanada's discovery documents

There seems to be an office supply shortage at TransCanada, the multi-billion dollar company that proposes to build the Keystone XL pipeline.

The photo shows some of the more than 360 discovery documents TransCanada sent to Dakota Rural Action (DRA), whom Plains Justice is representing in the Keystone XL proceedings at the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Every blue sheet of paper you see is one we inserted so we could tell where one document ended and another began. You’d think a multi-billion dollar company could afford staples and binder clips, or at least rubber bands.

Instead, TransCanada had not separated these documents with anything but one sheet of numbered white paper between them, and some didn’t even have that. This forced us us to spend time needed to prepare for hearings sorting 4,000 to 5,000 sheets of paper. In addition, one stack of papers fell over in its box during shipping and was out of order.

Details of serious ways that TransCanada hindered DRA’s efforts to prepare for hearings at the PUC are in this letter.