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Husky spill is a mess

The Husky oil spill on the North Saskatchewan River is a mess. Period.
Brian Zinchuk

The Husky oil spill on the North Saskatchewan River is a mess. Period.

And as editor of Pipeline News, I guess I’m supposed to be able to say something insightful about this awful situation, because if I don’t, I’m a coward, right?

The situation began at around 8 p.m. on July 20, when pressure anomalies were first detected on a 16-inch steel pipeline south of Paradise Hill. That pipeline is a major gathering line for Husky Energy’s oilfield north of the river. The pipeline crosses the North Saskatchewan River at that point. Just 300 metres from shore, the line started leaking. It was not shut in until 10:30 the next morning, when a spill was by now quite evident. Approximately 200 to 250 cubic meters, (1,258 to 1,572 barrels) of heavy oil and diluent left the pipeline, and while some of it was contained on shore, most of it flowed down the river valley and into the river.

By the time I write this, the oil has flowed down well over 400, and probably closer to 500 kilometres of the North Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan River, contaminating as it goes along.

The volume may seem like a lot, but in comparison to the river’s flow, it wasn’t much. Near the spill point, the river was flowing at 710 cubic metres per second, every second, 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, due to substantial rains in Alberta. Yet this comparatively small amount contaminated pretty much an entire river system, putting the drinking water of North Battleford, Prince Albert and Melfort, as well as a few smaller communities, at risk.

It’s pretty tough for me to report on this from Estevan. It’s probably not enough, but I’ve been doing the best I can.

I lived in North Battleford for 10 years. I lived through the 2001 water crisis. One friend was one of the most impacted by that crisis, with life-altering results. As the city hall reporter for the Battlefords News-Optimist for five years, I kept a copy of the inquiry report on my desk all that time. So you can imagine how sensitive that one community is to water issues, never mind the entire river system cutting across the province.

I also used to build pipelines, so I know a bit about that, too.

I’ve taken part in the daily press briefings, asking questions. Husky, so far, hasn’t said much about the cause, preferring to focus on the response at this time. They say a thorough investigation will take place.

Here’s some hard realities – in order to maintain our Western society, we need oil. And that oil is produced all over the place, including both sides of major rivers. Oil pipelines and river systems crisscross this entire continent, and where a pipeline meets a river, it has to cross it. Thus, there will always be intersections of pipelines and rivers. While this failure didn’t occur in the river itself (which would have been much, much worse), it was close enough to flow right in.

If we want to eliminate pipelines near rivers, then we have to give up oil — all of it, everywhere. I don’t know how we do that.

At this point I don’t know if the high water flow levels in the river are better or worse for the situation. It has impeded the operation of the numerous booms. I asked officials about the efficacy of booms – how much oil they could be expected to collect, and they wouldn’t give me an answer. But perhaps the large volumes will dilute the spill to nothingness further downstream? Is it essentially a strong flushing action?  Will they be able to stop the sheen on the water at the Codette Reservoir?

How much shoreline cleanup will be needed is another question. When you spread 1,500 barrels across what is now probably 1,000 kilometres of shore (500 on each side of the river), what do you get? I guess we’re going to find out. How do you clean that up? And what do you do about oil that is no longer at the surface, having been stirred up by the high turbidity of the high flow?

And when will the water from the river be safe to drink?

So much for insightful.

— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.