Pipeline Spill In K-Country

[rudedawg]

A Husky-operated pipeline in the Moose Mountain area ruptured last week, spilling 25,000 litres of crude. An early report indicated that the spill was impacting Cox Hill Creek, which I believe is a tributary of Jumping Pound. Very little follow-up detail the extent of the stream impact.

 

Here's a link to a G&M story:

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/husky-oil-spill-in-southwest-alberta-estimated-at-25000-litres/article34391666/

 

"Spokesman Mel Duvall said in an email to The Canadian Press that cleanup at the site at Cox Hill Creek west of Bragg Creek is progressing well.

But he added the terrain where the leak happened is “very rocky and difficult.”"

 

Doesn't give one reason to be confident that the operator has the situation locked down.

 

[bcubed]

The creek is frozen/dry currently according to another site. One thing going for it anyway

[jpinkster]

Latest update - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/husky-spill-bragg-creek-cox-creek-crude-oil-1.4037469

 

25K L. Sounds like clean up should be done in a few days, remediation comes next.

[Swede]

!07 million for the clean up. Would have been cheaper to replace that old line with a new one.before it ruptured. Not sure why there isn't some regulations in place that force these company's to have to replace pipe after a certain amount of years.

Don't know if any of you have ever dug up old pipelines but the stuff they used to do just wouldn't be allowed by today's safety standards.

[northfork]

!07 million for the clean up. Would have been cheaper to replace that old line with a new one.before it ruptured. Not sure why there isn't some regulations in place that force these company's to have to replace pipe after a certain amount of years.

Don't know if any of you have ever dug up old pipelines but the stuff they used to do just wouldn't be allowed by today's safety standards.

That's what I do for a living is dig up old pipelines. Surprisingly, it likely isn't cheaper for them to replace that line or they would have. The construction and engineering in terrain like moose mountain is pri-cey. There should absolutely be tighter regulation but things are slowly changing. Their needs to be a lot of regulations created and updated, another big one I deal with on the reclamation side is the abandonment timeline regulation - this needs to get pushed through. Same with forcing more line integrity monitoring and digs.

 

As a footnote here I am in no way defending husky or any producer for allowing these things to happen. But to answer your question it is generally cheaper for them to repair, clean up, and pay any fines, than to have a pipeline offline and thus losing production profits and spending money to replace. It's generally a decision made by a Calgary, Dubai, or Houston bean counter who has no regard for the environment and potential offsite impacts, be that watercourse contamination or whatever.