Sign up for the battlefordsNOW newsletter

Mayor hopes new regulations will mean safer pipelines

Mar 28, 2017 | 2:46 PM

North Battleford’s mayor hopes the provincial government will ensure there is added safety of pipelines to better protect a significant water source for the city.

Following the province’s announcement to introduce new legislation to provide more checks in the oil pipeline industry after last July’s Husky Energy oil spill into North  Saskatchewan River, Mayor Ryan Bater said anything new that can help tighten controls is a good thing.

“Our primary concern is that it doesn’t happen again,” he said. “The response from the province last week was that there would be more robust auditing of the pipelines, especially pipelines that go through river valleys.

“My expectation is that the province will create a more robust regime, to ensure the pipelines are inspected more often and more thoroughly so that we don’t have this kind of inccident again,” added Bater.

Last week the province released information detailing its investigation into the oil spill into the river, near Maidstone, that compromised the water source, impacting North Battleford, Prince Albert and Melfort. 

The report indicated Husky Energy didn’t shut down its pipeline system until the next morning of July 21, although its operators would have been notified when the warning system indicated there were potential problems on a portion of the pipeline the night before. 

Also of concern, Husky didn’t advise the province of the spill, rather the province was the first to advise Husky after a member of the public identified an oil slick on the river in the morning of July 21.

Saskatchewan’s Energy and Resources Minister Dustin Duncan confirmed in a press conference  last week the province forwarded its report to the prosecutions branch  which will review the incident before determining whether any charges will be laid related to the spill.

Duncan said the new regulations will improve pipeline flow activities going forward.

About 225,000 litres of oil leaked from the spill, and 40 per cent of it entered the river.

According to the report, the pipeline cracked as a result of ground movement. 

Following the spill last July, North Battleford needed to access water from the Town of Battleford system for about two months.

“We were thankful we had a good neighbour in theTown of Battleford and that we were able to come up with solutions,” said Bater.

Mayor Bater said while it was unfortunate the spill occurred in the first place, the City of North Battleford does have a good working relationship with Husky Energy overall.

He said  Husky has been a “strong partner with the city, in terms of finding solutions, including funding a new water pipeline from Town of Battleford, and other funding for city water wells.

“We weren’t without water (as a result of the oil spill) because we had the two water plants,” said Bater. 

“We just had to issue a discretionary ban on outdoor watering in order to reduce usage.”

He said the city also had to ban water usage at car washes and laundromats, until a new water pipeline connecting Town of Battleford’s water to City of North Battleford was built, providing a supplementary source of water following the oil spill.  

The city had to shut down its surface water treatment plant last summer as a result of the spill, since the water in this plant comes directly from the North Saskatchewan River.  

Husky Energy spokesperson Mel Duvall said in response to the province’s report that “Husky accepts full responsibility and is using what we’ve learned from this incident to improve our systems and operating procedures.”

“We have already undertaken a number of actions to further improve our operations and will act on the findings in this report to implement additional steps where required.”

Duvall added at the time just before the spill, Husky was involved in completing various activities around the pipeline system on July 20, before the leak was discovered, including planned start-ups and shut-downs, so it wouldn’t have been unusual for “anomolies” to be shown in the leak detection system. 

“As a result of the findings of our own investigation report and the subsequent report from the Ministry, we are undertaking a number of actions to further improve our operations. We will also act on the findings in the Ministry’s report,” Duvall added.

Husky Energy said it recovered about 210,000 litres in the oil-spill cleanup.

 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca