The Huffington Post reports, “Former TransCanada Corp. employee Evan Vokes’ impassioned testimony before a Canadian Senate committee last week painted ‘a very, very bleak picture of the pipeline industry in Canada… Vokes’ allegations on Thursday against TransCanada were sobering: a ‘culture of noncompliance’ and ‘coercion’, with ‘deeply entrenched business practices that ignored legally required regulations and codes’ and carries ’significant public safety risks’.”
TransCanada is the company behind both the Keystone XL and Energy East pipelines. Keystone XL would transport 830,000 barrels a day of mostly Alberta tar sands crude to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Energy East would be a 4,400 kilometre pipeline that could carry 500,000 to 850,000 barrels per day from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick as early as 2017.
The article adds, “Vokes worked for TransCanada for five years until May 2012, when he said he was fired without cause. …He provided the Canada Senate with evidence supporting complaints of what he said were shoddy safety practices, including management pressure to retract a welding code violation on a natural gas line feeding a tar sands project in Alberta, and the use of ’substandard materials’ in the original Keystone pipeline that carried the heavy, molasses-like oil into U.S. Midwest markets. …’There’s thousands of cracks in the system — it’s just which ones will become the problem? It’s low probability, high consequence’, Vokes said. …(He has) called oil and gas the ‘lifeblood’ and said he believes it is possible to pipe it all safely. ‘I don’t have a problem with what’s in pipeline’, said Vokes. ‘I have a problem if it comes outside the pipeline.’”
Andrew Nikiforuk has written in the Tyee, “A Global News investigation found that Alberta’s pipeline infrastructure has leaked 61,000 times in the last 37 years. Approximately 29,000 spills involved oil, a rate of two crude oil spills a day. The remainder involved everything from salt water to condensate.”
For more, please read:
TransCanada Whistleblower Warns Of Shoddy Pipeline Practices
NEWS: TransCanada fails to comply with pipeline construction regulations
NEWS: Harper backs Energy East pipeline
NEWS: TransCanada CEO says we need to “get oil exported on the water”
NEWS: Pipeline industry called for changes to Navigable Waters Protection Act
VIDEO: Barlow addresses water warriors at KXL protest in DC
