6 pipeline incidents occurred in B.C. in past 3 years
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 | 8:40 PM CT
The Canadian Press
There have been six pipeline incidents involving hydrogen sulphide that meet Level 3 criteria — the highest — in British Columbia in the past three years, a spokeswoman for the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission said Tuesday.
Those six incidents include the two recent explosions along pipelines in the Dawson Creek area, which police have said appear to have been deliberately set.
The commission defined a Level 3 emergency as something that may contain one or all of the following factors:
- At the time of the incident a danger exists to the public or environment.
- Control of the situation has been lost (i.e. rare occasion of a well blowout).
- Release of hazardous substance.
- Extensive involvement of external emergency services, federal and/or provincial agencies.
- Emergency extends beyond company property.
Bomb experts have been combing the area of the two latest explosions all week, but answers are still few and far between.
The two explosions were along sour gas pipelines owned by EnCana Corp. near Dawson Creek, near the B.C.-Alberta boundary.
Police believe the Dawson Creek attacks are related to a letter sent to local media demanding a stop to oil and gas operations.
The explosions also have revealed a measure of discontent among residents whose quiet rural life has been interrupted by pipelines, wells and a bustling industry that has seen massive expansion in just a few years.
Commission spokeswoman Lee Shanks said in a statement that all incidents at oil and gas facilities in the province are reported to the commission, which tracks everything from tipped-over water containers at a well site to gas leaks and fires.
The commission also said that pipelines are built with emergency shutdown valves installed at pre-set points along the pipeline.
If the valves detect a pressure drop in the pipeline, they close automatically, stopping the flow of gas through the pipeline and trapping the gas between the valves closest to the rupture. This limits the volume of gas that can escape.
Other safeguards include the provision that prior to development or operation, sites containing H2S (hydrogen sulphide) must have an emergency planning zone determined and an emergency response plan established.
Share Tools
Latest North News Headlines
- Should be no limit on offshore liability: Greenpeace
- Greenpeace Canada says increasing liability limit for offshore oil spills to $1 billion may not be enough to cover the costs of a spill in arctic waters. more »
- Attempting to capitalize on the cold
- An Iqaluit delegation is attending the Paris Airshow to sell the city as the ideal destination for aircraft manufacturers to do cold weather testing. more »
- Half of First Nations children live in poverty
- Half of status First Nations children in Canada live in poverty, a troubling figure that jumps to nearly two-thirds in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, says a newly released report. more »
- Whitehorse Catholic school principal won't return to job
- The principal at the centre of the controversy at the Vanier Catholic Secondary School in Whitehorse will not return to his position in the fall. The principal told students he had received death threats over the school's policy on homosexuality. more »
Must Watch
Top News Headlines
- Obesity called a disease by U.S. doctors group
- The American Medical Association has voted to recognize obesity as a disease, while doctors in Canada say they also treat it as such. more »
- Neil Macdonald: Washington's obsession with leakers
- Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are just the most prominent targets in an all-out legal and propaganda campaign that America's security apparatus is mounting against leakers everywhere, Neil Macdonald writes. more »
- How open is Ottawa's new 'open data' website?
- Treasury Board President Tony Clement is touting the federal government's revamped data portal as a "new natural resource." But that online window for previously published data arrives at the same time the government faces controversy over just how open it really is. more »
- 30,000 Canadians are homeless every night
- A new national report into homelessness in this country tells a grim story — at least 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in any given year and least 30,000 Canadians are homeless on any given night. more »
- Yellowknife grandma to paddle 2,000 km solo to Nunavut
- Whitehorse Catholic school principal won't return to job
- Toddler attacked by sled dogs in Igloolik, Nunavut
- Zama spill site shows brown trees, 3 containment sites
- Northern women sewing for North American moccasin project
- Yellowknife brew pub location to be moved
- Half of First Nations children live in poverty
- Home wiring, fire services delay lead to Yukon woman's death
- Iqaluit mom not guilty of assaulting son
