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Wall visits NB to talk oil spill

Despite what appears to be initial good news from water quality tests in the North Saskatchewan River, Premier Brad Wall indicated far more work is needed in the wake of the Husky oil spill impacting North Battleford and Prince Albert.

Despite what appears to be initial good news from water quality tests in the North Saskatchewan River, Premier Brad Wall indicated far more work is needed in the wake of the Husky oil spill impacting North Battleford and Prince Albert. 

“We’re all wanting to get to the long-term solution,” Wall told reporters at City Hall on Wednesday at noon. “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.”

The premier was in North Battleford for a much-anticipated meeting with local municipal officials who have been dealing with the after-effects of the oil spill for the last several days. 

His visit was on the heels of the release of a Husky Energy report into water quality in the North Saskatchewan River. The report was based on samples taken from the river from the site of the spill all the way to Prince Albert. 

According to that report there had been only five samples showing excedances of applicable Canadian drinking water guidelines, and those were within 20 km of the spill. As well, no additional excedances have been detected in samples at any location since July 24.

However, Wall said to reporters that the province wants to verify those results with their own testing. 

“It’s testing that has been done that we want to verify with our own testing independently,” Wall said, who added there’s more work to be done and “more testing that needs to be done, especially as we know the oil in the water can settle.”

Wall also said later that officials at the Water Security Agency will go over the testing done by others to make sure the testing is accurate and happening at a regular occurrence and interval. 

The premier’s visit also came one day after North Battleford held a special council meeting to approve a three-pronged strategy to address the water supply shortfall. That includes a pipeline of potable water from Battleford, the drilling of four new wells in North Battleford, and bringing in pre-filtration technology for collecting again from the North Saskatchewan River.     

Wall pledged to continue support for the city.  

“Whatever is needed from the city they’re going to have from the province,” Wall said. 

He added that “the mayor and others at the meeting today have been more than forthcoming with help and support and resources when asked.” 

In response to comments that this might have been an “accident waiting to happen,” Wall said there were “going to be a lot of comments in hindsight of any particular accident. This is very serious. And so we are going to take the matter very seriously, obviously not just in response but in a review to learn what we can and prevent something like this from ever happening again.”

The premier also confirmed he was not planning to attend an event in North Battleford called “Is moving oil on pipelines safe?” That event was scheduled for the next day at White Rock Gas Bar, but although Premier Wall was listed on the agenda, he will not be in attendance. 

In speaking to reporters, Mayor Ian Hamilton said the meeting with the premier that morning “discussed what our measures are going forward, what our strategy and planning for the next 12 months would encompass and the scope of it. So that’s what we shared with the premier today and asked that they be also very much aware of this and so we go forward that they are part of the overall recovery plan that we have.”

Compared to P.A., “we were very, very fortunate to have two sources of water,” said Hamilton. 

“I believe we’ve responded really proactively to the situation and done a great job mitigating the impact on our citizens, and we have good plans to go forward,” Hamilton said. “It’s been a long 10 days but we’re making do, and as of yesterday afternoon at noon, council convened and approved our go-forward plan.”       

As for the test results released that day, Hamilton said “I’m not sure they were very conclusive in many respects.” He said the City was still going ahead with its 12-month plan “because there’s not enough assurance that by the freeze-up this year we’ll be able to re-engage the F.E. Holliday plant.”