By battlefordsNOW Staff

Response to oil spill will take days

Jul 22, 2016 | 4:25 PM

The response to an oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River will have to be escalated, and will require several more days, according to the province.

In a late afternoon news release Friday, July 22, the government said the plan by Husky Energy to capture and contain the oil slick at Paynton was compromised because of a rise in the river level of nearly one metre. Debris was pushed into the booms being used to try to capture the oil.

That oil was still moving downstream Friday afternoon, and had not yet reached North Battleford according to a city spokesperson. The expected oil slick led the city to shut down its F.E. Holliday Water Treatment Plant, while crews provided by Husky worked to protect the water intake. The city was relying on stored water in its reservoirs and tower, along with well water treated by its other plant.

The city asked North Battleford residents not to water their lawn until further notice.

The latest effort to capture and contain the water involved a new boom perimeter and intensified skimming activities, and was expected to last for several days.

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An estimated 250,000 litres of oil, the equivalent of two railcars, leaked from a Husky pipeline north of Maidstone the morning of Thursday, July 21 before the pipeline was shut off. It wasn’t known how much of that ended in the river, as a portion of it was captured on land. An official with the ministry of Environment said Husky would be required to pay all costs arising from the spill.

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