Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment photo.
The Council of Canadians Regina chapter has called for the release of inspection reports given an oil spill in Saskatchewan late last week.
On Friday (January 20) a pipeline leaked about 200,000 litres (about 1,400 barrels) of crude oil on the territory of the Ocean Man First Nation, which is located about 140 kilometres southeast of Regina.
The Regina Leader Post reports, “The province says an actual source of the leak will not be known until the site is excavated and the break location confirmed.” Reuters adds, “It was not immediately clear how the current incident happened or which company owns the underground pipeline that leaked the oil.” Other news reports suggest the pipeline is owned by Tundra Energy Marketing.
This pipeline spill follows the 225,000 litre Husky Oil spill in July 2016.
Regina chapter activist Jim Elliott says, “With continued problems associated with oil pipelines spills in Saskatchewan, we call upon the Premier to release the inspection reports on this pipeline and Husky’s. Two spills in less than a year clearly tells us that this province’s inspection regime needs the public scrutiny and transparency so that we can firstly fix the current problems and trust that this will not happen again.”
He adds, “One spill is a local problem. Two spills within six months tells me that we have a larger problem with the required inspection of our oil & gas industry. The standards are obviously problematic since these two spills have little or nothing in common except the inspection regime.”
In November 2016, the Council of Canadians expressed its support for the Ksiskatchewan Water Alliance Network demand for an independent probe into the Husky oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River.
The Regina chapter notes, “Just last month and even with the request from the Privacy Commissioner, the province of Saskatchewan announced that the inspection records on the Husky Oil Spill last year will not be released.”
Elliott highlights, “With this province potentially building three very large oil pipelines (Keystone XL, Line 3 and Energy East), we need to know that one of these types of pipeline spills will not happen again.”
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