A look at some oil spills and leaks on the Prairies over the last decade
REGINA — It’s been a year since a Husky Energy pipeline leaked 225,000 litres of heavy oil and diluent near Maidstone, Sask. About 40 per cent of the spill reached the North Saskatchewan River. Here’s a list of some spills of oil and other materials on the Prairies in recent years:
January 2017: A band member from the Ocean Man First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan finds a 200,000-litre pool of crude on farmland. The pipeline responsible, owned by Tundra Energy Marketing, is nearly 50 years old and there’s no record of it ever being inspected by provincial authorities.
June 2016: An estimated 380,000 litres of light petroleum leaks within five kilometres of a grizzly bear management zone in northwestern Alberta. Owners ConocoPhillips Canada and Paramount Resources say the leak of condensate, a liquid produced with natural gas, is from a gas plant near Grande Cache, Alta. No one is found living in the area and there’s no evidence of animals or fish hurt by the spill.
July 2015: Five million litres of bitumen, sand and water mixed together spill into muskeg at Nexen Energy’s Long Lake oilsands project near Fort McMurray, Alta. The company concludes a pipeline rupture went undetected for about a month before it was discovered by a contractor. Nexen says the pipeline was not designed properly for muskeg conditions. In July 2017, the Alberta Energy Regulator lays five charges against Nexen.
