Piping Crude? ‘There Is No Leak Proof System’, Alberta’s atrocious record of pipeline leaks a strong warning to British Columbia

Piping Crude? ‘There Is No Leak Proof System’, Alberta’s atrocious record of pipeline leaks a strong warning to British Columbia by Bill Tieleman, August 7, 2012, TheTyee.ca
Alberta Premier Alison Redford says oil pipelines are environmentally safe, with any spills an easily dealt with unusual occurrence. … Between 1990 and 2010 there were 6,416 Alberta pipeline failures that released liquid hydrocarbons, according to Sean Kheraj’s research using publicly available documents. Kheraj is an assistant professor of history at Toronto’s York University who is doing something surprisingly unusual — determining the frequency and severity of pipeline oil spills in Alberta and Canada. In an interview Sunday, Kheraj said we should be concerned about “an inevitable pipeline rupture” based on Alberta’s own record…. Kheraj roughly calculates that from 2006 to 2010, Alberta’s pipeline network spilled a “staggering” 174,213 barrels of oil or 27,700 cubic metres (1 cubic metre = 1,000 litres). Despite Alberta’s constant flow of leaked oil and other hydrocarbons, the provincial government continues to maintain everything is just peachy.

This entry was posted in Global Frac News. Bookmark the permalink.