Saskatchewan spill highlights problems with pipeline leak detection systems
CALGARY — Clint Big Eagle says the whiff of oil permeated the frigid Saskatchewan air for about a week and a half before he decided to pull over and investigate.
“The kids are all, ‘It’s a terrible, ugly smell. What is that?’” Big Eagle said in an interview.
That turned out to be a 200,000-litre pool of crude coating a frozen pond, a few hundred metres off the road on Ocean Man First Nation territory.
“That’s an incredible amount of oil not to keep accounted for,” he said.