For the third time in the past month a major pipeline rupture has spilled oil in the province of Alberta. According to the province’s regulator, the Energy Resources Conservation Board, an estimated 1,450 barrels of heavy crude oil (~230 cubic metres) leaked from a pumping station along Enbridge’s Athabasca Pipeline, […]
Oil history
Premier Redford’s remarks yesterday following the recent Plains Midstream Canada pipeline failure north of Sundre really underlined the importance of keeping track of the history of oil pipeline spills in Alberta in both the the recent and deeper past. “It’s actually an exception,” Redford said in regard to the Red […]
Yesterday’s news of the Plains Midstream Canada oil pipeline spill on the Red Deer River and Glennifer Lake has attracted some much needed attention to Alberta’s pipeline system. While this most recent spill of between 1,000 and 3,000 barrels (~159-477 cubic metres) of light sour crude oil garnered a lot […]
[This article was updated on June 8, 2012] Late Thursday evening on June 7, 2012, the Sundre Petroleum Operators Group, a not-for-profit society, notified Plains Midstream Canada of a major oil pipeline failure near Sundre, Alberta that spilled an early estimate of between 1,000 and 3,000 barrels of light sour […]
It seems like oil spill history is playing an especially important role in the current debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and Northern Gateway pipeline projects. I recently wrote up a short piece on oil pipeline spills in Alberta’s history. This history of recent oil pipeline spills associated with Enbridge […]
Dean Bavington recently posted a link to a broadcast on Al Jazeera that focused on Canada’s tar sands industry in northern Alberta. Broken into two parts, the documentary, “To the Last Drop”, succinctly surveys the numerous adverse environmental effects of tar sands development, especially the infusion of carcinogenic toxins into […]
On Friday, 29 April 2011, Plains Midstream Canada quietly issued a press release, informing the public of a crude oil spill from the Rainbow Pipeline east of the Peace River in northern Alberta near Little Buffalo, AB. Four days later, following the Canadian federal election, Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board […]