Before we go much further into the dangers of pipelines in the wake of the very poor handling of the Husky Oil North Saskatchewan River spill, let us quickly explore a less publicized news story this week.
Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced last week that, starting in November, tanker cars like the ones involved in the Lac-Mégantic, Que. disaster won’t be transporting oil in Canada any more.
“The Lac-Mégantic tragedy reminds us of the importance of staying vigilant in order to ensure security while transporting dangerous goods across Canada,” Garneau said, of the DOT-111 cars that will phased out from oil transportation six months earlier than planned.
The federal minister’s message was important one for obvious reasons.
The July 6, 2013 derailment killed 47 people when the cars barreled into the community’s downtown.
And notwithstanding these attempts to make moving oil by rail safer, there were 146,000 shipments of crude oil down the tracks in Canada.
Simply put, an oil rail derailment poses risks to both public safety and the environment, which is why is Premier Brad continues to argue for pipelines — even in the wake of the mess we now see on the North Saskatchewan River shores.
But that in no way means pipeline safety gets a free pass from Wall or any government leader. Sadly, the Saskatchewan Party administration could have done much more before and after this disaster.
Sure, some argue the July 21st spill of 250,000 litres of heavy oil from the Husky Oil pipeline into the North Saskatchewan River is small by industry standards. The pipeline spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan spilled 16 times more oil into local waters.
But consider the impact of this supposed “small spill”. Major Saskatchewan communities like North Battleford, Melfort and Prince Albert have been ordered to preserve water. This has included Saskatchewan`s third largest city having to get a 30-kilomtetre hose to pump in water from a safe source.
Small communities and farms along the river have simply been left to their own devices. And the situation could go on for weeks … if not months.
And, frighteningly, spills are more common that we think. According to the Environment Ministry, there have been 8,360 spills in Saskatchewan since 2006 (with Husky Oil responsible for 1,463). In Fact, there have been 18,000 such Saskatchewan spills since 1990 and government is spending less — not more resources — when it comes to monitoring them.
The 2016-17 budget cut funding for the Petroleum and Natural Gas branch by $2.7 million. And while that did not result in lay-offs among the 27 pipeline inspectors in Estevan, Kindersley, Swift Current, Lloydminster and Regina, there is less than one inspector for every 1,000 kilometre of pipeline in this province.
More accountability is required. It took Husky Oil 14 hours to shut off the leak because it only identified it as “pressure anomaly”.
Sadly, we are instead seeing “regulation by declaration” in this industry because the government cannot keep up.
Yet Wall and company certainly demonstrated no urgency in personally addressing the matter.
Wall took a mind-boggling six days after the July 21st spill to account to speak to reporters. And even though Wall finally did say last Wednesday he was not satisfied with the response and promised to tour the area the next day, he also insisted enough checks and balances were in place and that there was no “egregious error or bad judgement”.
No egregious error or bad judgement, yet rural communities and bigger cities are now in crisis because of this spill.
One cannot help but think that the promotion of moving oil by pipeline rather than rail is the reason for this tepid response from Wall.
Pipelines are likely safer, but this does not mean Wall gets to give pipeline safety a free pass.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
