(With files from Brian Zinchuk, Pipeline News.)
The biggest story to hit the city of North Battleford in 2016 began in the overnight hours of July 20 to 21.
The next day, the extent of the issue was just becoming known.
According to the initial report from Husky Energy Thursday evening, July 21, it had shut down a pipeline on its Saskatchewan Gathering System approximately 30 kilometres east of Lloydminster, near Maidstone.
The initial incident report Husky filed with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Economy stated, “on July 20, 2016 at approximately 2000h, a pipeline release was discovered on the south shore of the North Saskatchewan River, upstream of the south isolation valve site on 12-17-051-24-W3M.”
Cleanup crews were deployed to the site to deal with the situation and the first reports did not seem to point to a major problem impacting the river water.
Soon enough, it became clear that a major situation was on everyone’s hands.
Approximately 200 to 250 cubic metres of heavy oil and effluent had entered the North Saskatchewan River.
According to the story filed by Pipeline News editor Brian Zinchuk, the incident “occurred near, but not at, the point where the pipeline crossed the river, south of Paradise Hill. The spill occurred on the south shore of the river, in the river valley, approximately 300 metres from water. While the nature of the pipeline failure has yet to be determined, the oil flowed overland and entered the river near a Husky facility built along its shore.”
Zinchuk reported the first evidence of a leak was detected at approximately 8 p.m. July 20, but the pipeline was shut down with manual valves at 10:30 a.m. the following day.
That approximate 14-hour gap would become a major source of contention for many who were highly critical of Husky’s response during the immediate aftermath of the spill.
Husky’s initial attempts to contain the spill included building a berm on land to capture as much oil as possible before it reached the water.
But five containment booms set up at Paynton Ferry, North Battleford, and Maymont also failed to stop the oil plume, which continued on down the river en route to Prince Albert and Melfort.
For officials with the city of North Battleford, this oil spill was an unexpected turn of events. The operations department had already been dealing with a major and emerging issue impacting their water supply — the buildup of sand around the intakes at the F.E. Holliday water treatment plant, one of two water treatment plants servicing North Battleford.
Just days earlier, North Battleford city council had awarded a tender for dredging work to begin. But the oil spill threw those plans out the window.
By Friday afternoon, officials in North Battleford had received notice the oil from the spill would reach the city that night.
F.E. Holliday Shut Down
The F.E. Holliday water plant was shut down, and Husky Energy constructed a berm around the plant’s water intake to protect it from the spill material.
From that point on, the city was down to just one water source — Water Treatment Plant No. 1, which sources water from groundwater wells.
Officials immediately sent out an advisory urging residents to go into “winter water use” mode to conserve the water supply. That meant shutting all car washes down, closing all laundromats and urging residents not to water their lawns or gardens.
Meanwhile, in Battleford, no problems were anticipated. Despite the town’s own proximity to the river, their water treatment plant accesses water entirely from four groundwater wells, and not from the river.
In Battleford, residents were relatively unaffected by what transpired that weekend. For their neighbours north of the river in North Battleford, all heck had broken loose.
By Sunday, their water restrictions had become mandatory and the City planned to be in contact with businesses that were large water users about the situation. City officials were meeting with the Saskatchewan Ministry of the Environment and the Water Security Agency about the spill.
By Monday, July 25, the City reported that due to the water conservation efforts of local businesses, Water Treatment Plant No. 1 could keep up with the water demand. In the meantime, officials were already considering what alternative sources could be found.
By this point, the plume of oil had made it to Prince Albert, which declared a local state of emergency and shut down its intakes to the North Saskatchewan River. Because Prince Albert relies entirely on river water, that city was in an even more dire situation as it scrambled to put in place an alternative pipeline to supply water.
July 25, Husky’s vice-president of exploration and production services, Al Pate, said during a daily news conference that “we realize this has been a very challenging time for everybody, with the spill impacting people, the environment and local businesses.
“We’re deeply sorry this has happened. We accept full responsibility for the event and the cleanup, and we will make things right.”
The environmental impact was beginning to become apparent. Three birds were rescued on Saturday after being found completely covered in oil.
The coming days saw officials with the City of North Battleford scramble to respond to the spill.
Emergency Operation Centre Activated
Monday, the City activated its Emergency Operation Centre, located at the Cameron McIntosh Airport.
There, officials were tasked with coming up with a plan to replace the significant amount of water supply from the North Saskatchewan River. The meetings included representatives from the Water Security Agency and the City’s external engineers, and took place over the course of the week.
Director of Finance David Gillan outlined the discussions that took place during that time when he reported back to council the next week.
Several options had been considered included pipelines to Lloydminster or to the South Saskatchewan River, but Gillan made clear these options were too expensive.
“Just unbelievably crazy numbers,” said Gillan.
Another option that was considered was accessing water from the Battle River. That was something Gillan said was a “real alternative,” but a better option came to officials’ attention.
That was the possibility of accessing the groundwater by a supply line from the Battleford water treatment plant. The advantage of that plan compared to the Battle River plan was that the Battleford water supply was already treated and potable right away. As well, Battleford had enough water available.
By Friday, the deal was signed between the City of North Battleford and the Town of Battleford to access the town’s water supply.
The following Tuesday, a special council meeting was held at City Hall. At that meeting, administration officials outlined the plan that had been developed to replace the river water supply.
Strategy Developed
It was a three-pronged strategy.
The first was the agreement to access Battleford’s water. The water line would run from Battleford across the old bridge on an overland pipe, then be hooked up directly into the distribution system at the F.E. Holliday plant.
The second initiative was to drill additional supply wells for Water Treatment Plant No. 1. Four new wells were approved in the amount of $1,842,000, which Director of Operations Stewart Schafer said would bring capacity up from 200 cubic metres/hour to 300 cubic metres/hour at that plant, for a 50 per cent increase. That was expected to come online by the end of August.
The third initiative was considered the most daunting challenge: to bring in filtration equipment from General Electric Water Systems on a temporary basis that could pre-treat water from the North Saskatchewan River water and remove all traces of hydrocarbons.
That would allow F.E. Holliday to reopen with water from the river. Gillan explained it would be a “double-pass” filtration system. The first was an organoclay that would filter out hydrocarbons, and then the water would pass through an active carbon filter to make sure it is totally clean.
“We expect that at the end of that process that the water will have hydrocarbon content of next-to-zero, if not zero,” Gillan said. The water would then go into the water treatment plant to be retreated again and dispersed into the city.
The filtration system would not by itself bring back the river water supply to where it was before. But all three options would make up the shortfall over the next 12 months.
One consideration was the fact the Battleford pipeline would be operational only until freeze-up. At that point, water would not be able to flow across the line to North Battleford and it would have to be shut down.
But Gillan pointed out that “city demand in winter also drops,” so the other two water sources from the wells and the GE filtration should carry them until the spring. At that point, the Battleford line would be opened again.
The overall cost to the City was staggering. The oil spill was characterized as a between $6 and $9 million event and the expectation from City officials was that Husky would pay for all of it.
Gillan said the City had “close discussions with Husky and we’ve had a very good relationship with them. They don’t want to be a bad corporate citizen, and we want the water supply that’s been lost, recovered.”
Environmental Concerns
While North Battleford officials had been busy scrambling to save their water supply, environmental activists made it known they were concerned, even furious, at what had just transpired.
Then interim Green Party leader Shawn Setyo, who later became the permanent leader of the party in October, came to North Battleford to see the state of the river July 31. Setyo collected a water sample from underneath the Battlefords Bridge, and later reported that some oil particles had in fact settled in the jar of river water.
First Nation leaders representing those reserves impacted by the spill were also demanding answers. A meeting was held July 28 that included Husky representatives as well as Trent Wotherspoon, interim leader of the Opposition, and Mayor Ian Hamilton.
After the meeting, Chief Lori Whitecalf of Sweetgrass First Nation voiced concern about the lack of involvement by other key leaders.
“We’ve been excluded from all talks as though we don’t exist,” said Whitecalf. “I can’t let the provincial and federal government walk away from that responsibility.”
The following week, First Nation leaders held a forum north of the city on the safety of pipelines, a meeting that also included a protest march along Highway 4 to the North Saskatchewan River.
They invited Husky Oil officials and also Premier Brad Wall to attend and explain what happened, but they failed to show.
"That's the last thing on their agenda – First Nations people and indigenous people," said Onion Lake chief Wallace Fox.
For his part, Wall had met with City officials a day earlier, on Aug. 3, about their proposed plan of action.
Wall’s visit was immediately after a Husky Energy report on water quality in the river was released, one that indicated only five samples had exceeded the applicable Canadian drinking water guidelines, and those were all within 20 kilometres of the spill.
Despite what seemed like good news, Wall was cautious.
“We’re all wanting to get to the long-term solution,” Wall said to reporters. “We’re all wanting to get to the point where the City of North Battleford and City of P.A. can use their filtration systems, can use their intakes off of the river. And we will get there, but we’ll only get there when it’s safe to do so.”
Aug. 9, the final tests having been completed, the water supply line from Battleford officially came into use. The estimate was that the line would replace up to a third of the water from the river.
Compensation From Husky
At a Aug. 15 council meeting, Gillan confirmed the City had received its first pre-payment of $3.5 million from Husky as compensation for the oil spill.
City Manager Jim Puffalt also updated council about the work already underway. Construction had begun on the additional wells at the groundwater plant, Water Treatment Plant No. 1, with two wells drilled as of that day.
Puffalt also responded to news that the latest Water Security Agency tests had found the water in the North Saskatchewan was within safe drinking guidelines. Despite that, Puffalt made clear the City was taking no chances.
“Our concern, and why we’re not willing to open up the intakes at all, is because we have no proof that the sediment is clean,” said Puffalt. “And we’re concerned that something comes in that will blow the plant up.”
The proposed dredging of the North Saskatchewan River was also still on hold.
“We don’t think it’s wise at this point in time to disturb the river base, on the river bottom, and start disrupting and have more things go down the river,” said Puffalt.
Restrictions Lifted
The afternoon of Wednesday Aug. 31 saw some long-awaited relief for city residents.
Two of the four new wells had finally come into operation, and all water use restrictions for businesses were lifted.
On Sept. 2, all outside watering restrictions were lifted. Car washes and laundromats could resume operation as well.
The statement from the City read as follows: “the City of North Battleford thanks all residents and businesses for conserving water for almost 1.5 months. Your contribution and co-operation was crucial to the success in ensuring there was enough water during this trying time.”
At city council Sept. 12, it was reported all four of the new wells were now in production, and the supply line from Battleford was still pumping water to the F.E. Holliday plant. Further discussions were also underway on the GE filtration system.
By Friday morning, Sept. 16, there was further good news. The Water Security Agency had confirmed the water quality of the North Saskatchewan River to be safe, and approved reopening the water intakes in North Battleford, Prince Albert and Melfort.
But it was still business as usual in North Battleford as officials made clear they would not reopen their systems until the GE filtration system was in place.
“Right now we have sufficient amount of water supplied by the Town of Battleford pipeline and the wells at WTP No. 1 to meet the water demand in our city,” said Mayor Hamilton in a news release.
“We want to make sure we can supply safe drinking water to our residents and that our water treatment plant as well as our distribution system are protected. Once the additional filtration system is in place we are confident that we can do that.”
The other news from that day was that the dredging work for the water intakes would commence again in the coming weeks.
Despite the positive reports coming from the province and from City Hall, many throughout the North Battleford community continued to take a skeptical view of the safety of the river water following the oil spill.
Independent Assessment
A public meeting was held Sept. 19 at North Battleford public library in which consultant Ricardo Segovia of E-Tech International and Resurgence Environmental shared findings of their report into the oil spill.
They were highly critical of Husky for its delayed reaction to the July 20 oil spill as well as the reported 14-hour delay in reaction from the time it began. Segovia recommended people living near the river use carbon filters on their showers and taps from now on.
“I’m still going to buy a carbon filter for my house,” said Segovia, who added that for the next two years the river water should be “tested all the time to see what’s going in the intakes.”
By year’s end, the long-awaited dredging work had been completed on the North Saskatchewan River and work was underway to have the GE filtration system up and commissioned. Despite cold weather conditions the supply line from Battleford was still operational as of the week of Dec. 12.
However, in his report to council, Schafer said he expected the supply line to be shut down and drained by week’s end, and go into storage until it returned to use in the spring.
The City’s efforts to recover from the oil spill into the North Saskatchewan River was expected to continue to be an ongoing story well into 2017.
Husky Reports
As for the spill itself, it was in mid-November when the cause was finally determined. The findings were released from two reports filed by Husky to the province’s ministry of the economy.
A pipeline metallurgical failure analysis report, by engineering firm Acuren Group Inc., and a geotechnical investigation report by engineering firm Stantec Consulting Ltd., had been conducted.
“Stantec Consulting’s geotechnical report, filed on IRIS (Integrated Resource Information System), has concluded that the pipeline break was the result of geotechnical activity (ground movement). Acuren Group’s metallurgical report, filed on IRIS, has concluded that the break was a sudden, one‐time event in a section of the pipe that had buckled due to the force of ground movement. Its report also concluded the break was not the result of material defects, deficiencies or corrosion.”
A 16-inch pipe had buckled, with the bottom of the pipe bulging and splitting, according to the findings.
“The dirt did it. More specifically, wet dirt did it,” reported Brian Zinchuk on Nov. 21.
“The much-anticipated engineering reports explaining the cause of the July 21 Husky pipeline oil spill north of Maidstone which then flowed into the North Saskatchewan River cited ground movement, caused by rain, as the culprit.”
