A spill per week?

Jun
20
2012
Oil pipeline spills in Alberta are happening more regularly than garbage pick-up.
on3 of several major oil spills in Alberta in June 2012
photo credit:

Oil pipeline spills in Alberta are happening more regularly than garbage pick-up.

Three serious Alberta oil spills in as many weeks, notwithstanding Premier Alison Redford’s recent comment: “We are fortunate in this province that they don’t happen very often”

 

Forgive me for spilling some numbers on you:  First it was over 800,000 litres of oil leaked from a Pace Oil & Gas Pipeline in northern Alberta. Then it was 475,000 litres spilled by Plains Midstream Canada into the Red Deer river. And now on Monday Enbridge spouted 230,000 liters of heavy crude near Elk Point. Each one of these incidents is an ecological disaster in its own right.
 
Since 2006, Alberta’s pipelines have spilled the equivalent of 28 million litres of oil! Leaks are not a rare exception to the rule; even the regulators admit that they are inevitable, celebrating an estimated (record low?) of 840 spills in 2007. And that’s just the oil that’s spilling in Alberta.  
 
Why should we care?  Because major decisions are being made right now that will determine where oil spills of the future will be. This is a national discussion affecting huge pieces of the country. 
 
In the north-west, hearings are still underway on the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline, proposed to run across countless communities and sensitive ecosystems across Alberta and northern B.C.
 
Further south, plans are in the works for Kinder Morgan to ship dramatically more oil through pipelines running through the Coast Mountains and through Vancouver.
 
In the east, Enbridge’s risky new plan to ship tar sands oil from Sarnia through Ontario and Greater Toronto to Montreal would increase the risk of a spill into the Grand, the Rouge, the Rideau and the Richelieu Rivers, just to name a few.
 
It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either when we learn that federal officials recently called Enbridge’s oil spill response "insufficient".
 
Of course, there is more than enough space in existing pipelines to handle current oil production, so these new pipelines would only be needed if the tar sands are allowed to triple their production--not a good idea if we want any hope of preventing further global warming.  
 
Every Canadian shouldn’t have to face the real possibility of a spill in their own backyard--or into their supply of drinking water. 
 
We have a choice. Instead of committing to more risky oil infrastructure, we can shift our plans to invest more in green energy, in efficiency and in new ideas. There’s an idea I wouldn’t mind seeing leak around a bit more.
 

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