Enbridge pumping station spills 230,000 litres of heavy crude northeast of Edmonton

Enbridge pumping station spills 230,000 litres of heavy crude northeast of Edmonton by Mary Jo Laforest, June 19, 2012, The Canadian Press
Enbridge estimates about 230,000 litres has leaked, but the ERCB’s Darin Barter said Tuesday that amount hasn’t been confirmed. “It’s a significant-size spill,” said Barter. “Any amount of crude oil out of a pipeline is significant to us. Obviously we’ve had a number of pipeline incidents in the past short while and we’re monitoring cleanup on them and we have a number of investigations underway.” … “There’s absolutely no waterways, there’s no water, there’s no standing water, it’s on dry land,” he said. … Enbridge said in a news release that the cause of the leak appears to be a failure of a flange gasket. It said as soon as it detected the leak, it notified civic authorities and other regulatory agencies. But Steve Upham, reeve of the County of St. Paul, where the pumping station is located, said as of Tuesday night he hadn’t received any notification. Upham said he was aware of the spill only through media reports. “I don’t think anybody in the county, at this point, has been notified,” he said. Asked if he should have been contacted by Enbridge, Upham said: “I would have thought so. Or Alberta Environment, because they would be notified, I think. We’ve heard nothing from anybody.” Enbridge said immediately after the leak was detected, the pipeline was shut down. It was restarted again Monday afternoon, but the company was ordered by the ERCB to shut it down again Tuesday afternoon. “Enbridge is in discussion with the ERCB to determine the appropriate time for a restart of the line,” the company said. The leak is the second major spill in Alberta this month. Up to 475,000 litres of oil leaked from a pipeline owned by Plains Midstream Canada into the Red Deer River and flowed into Gleniffer Lake earlier this month. People with homes on the man-made lake say the company still can’t say for sure how long the cleanup will take. The Alberta government says it is monitoring water on the river and the lake twice daily at 21 different sites.

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