Category Archives: Energy and Resources

BREAKING NEWS: Alberta pipeline sprouts ‘significant leak’

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Tar Sands,
Share

From the Calgary Herald – April 30, 2011

by Reuters

A 200,000 barrel per day oil pipeline belonging to a unit of Plains
All American Pipeline LP ruptured on Friday, spilling hundreds of
barrels of oil, regulators said.

Plains’ Rainbow pipeline, which
runs from Zama in northwest Alberta 770 kilometres south to Edmonton,
sprung a leak at 7: 30 a.m. local time.

“It’s not a small leak,”
said Davis Sheremata, a spokesman for Alberta’s Energy Resources
Conservation Board, which regulates pipelines in the province.

“It’s a significant leak, in the hundreds of barrels.”

The leak occurred 100 km northeast of Peace River, the regulator said.

The
ERCB said the line was shut down and the company and authorities were
working on cleanup efforts. The regulator said the spill was 300 metres
from flowing water and seven kilometres from the nearest residence.

It’s
the second leak from an Alberta pipeline in a week. Kinder Morgan
Energy Partners’s 300,000 bpd Trans Mountain oil pipeline was shut for
five days beginning on April 22 after a small leak was spotted on the
line’s right-of-way 150 km west of Edmonton.

Read original article
Share

A Vote for Harper is a Vote for Oil Tankers in BC

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, ,
Share

We must rise as one and vote against all Tory candidates on May 2 and do so by voting for the candidate most likely to beat them and here’s the reason:
 
Ponder the words spoken by Prime Minister Harper on a recent visit to North Vancouver – quoted in the Vancouver Sun:

“I think we have been very clear on this,” said Harper.

“We will only allow tanker traffic if we can be sure that tanker traffic is safe. But will we ever say that we cannot have the same kind of commerce on the West Coast as on the East Coast? Of course we’re never going to rule out those opportunities for our country.”

Harper said he wants to “see the day” when Canada is able to continue to increase trade with Asia.

“So we’re not going to create artificial bans on the West Coast that don’t exist in other parts of the country.”

Those are the words which must surely cause British Columbians to utterly reject Harper and his Tories at the polls.
 
The objection to the Enbridge double pipeline proposal from the Tar Sands to Kitimat thence by huge tanker down our coast, and expansion of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline from the Tar Sands to Burnaby, are not based upon some 1960s flower children chants (it turns out we should have listened to them) or some anti-business bias. The deep concerns come from fact, not emotion (though I confess that I have strong emotions about my province) about a policy which is based upon the false premise that these propositions have little risk.
 
Forgive me for using my oft-repeated simile but the dangers cannot be pushed aside lightly by one-liners.
 
Suppose you have a revolver with 100 chambers, only one of which has a bullet and suppose you put the gun to your head and pull the trigger just once. The odds are simple, 99-1 against. What, however, if you decide to repeat this insanity without any limits as to how many or how long?
 
The risk is then a certainty waiting to happen.
 
As you are calculating the odds of the gun going off you would be concerned about the consequences; namely, unless you were firing marshmallow not bullets you would be dead.
 
Not only are these pipelines and tankers certain to have accidents, the consequences are not marshmallow but utter catastrophe.
 
The pipelines, two them to Kitimat – one with Tar Sands gunk, the other to take back the natural gas compound to Alberta used to dilute the bitumen for pumping – transit some of the last true wilderness on the planet, including the Great Bear Rainforest.
 
What happens if there is a leak during this 1000-plus km journey?
 
The spill piles up until help comes, and given our geography, God only knows how long that would take!
 
Enbridge’s track record is appalling. With its Kalamazoo River spill last year it was roundly criticized for tardiness and that was in a populated area.
 
When Enbridge has its BC spill it will be in wilderness devoid of easy access. When the spill is reported the company must seal off both sides of the rupture and during that interval oil continues to flow through the breach. We’re talking 1100km transversing about 1000 rivers and streams in the wildest terrain in the world. No matter how quickly Enbridge responds, the damage will be an enormous, permanent tragedy. Moreover, while at the best of times any rupture will be tragic, what if the rupture is by terrorists who know how to make it as catastrophic as possible?
 
The proposed tanker traffic out of Kitimat is just as serious a concern as a land tragedy, perhaps even more so. The Exxon Valdez will pale by comparison. This is the most dangerous of the world’s seacoasts.

I hesitate to say that as we voters calculate the consequences of Harper’s offhand dismissal of our case (75-80% of British Columbians have consistently polled in favour of a tanker ban), we should remember that there isn’t anything in it for BC. I hesitate because even if the rewards were immense we should be opposed because no monetary reward could compensate our loss. In fact, BC is simply an easement and gets nothing of consequence. 

Why are our two senior governments so eager to have our province, on land and sea, hostage to China’s need for Tar Sands gunk? Isn’t the idea to get away from the use of fossil fuels? Aren’t we, in a sense, enabling the drunk to drink?

(It’s interesting to note the similarity of this policy to the government’s utter lack of concern that the Campbell/Clark private power plan sends all the benefits out of province. What is it about us in BC that the governments we help elect want to destroy our environment while making foreigners rich and happy?)

Back to proposed and existing pipelines and tanker traffic.
 

Stephen Harper’s policies guarantee that BC will sustain incalculable damage.
 
That being the case, British Columbians must ensure that Harper doesn’t get electoral encouragement, much less a majority from us.
 
Retaining our beautiful province is in our hands when we enter that polling booth May 2nd.

Share

Rosebud landowner launches $33M lawsuit against Encana, government over methane in drinking water

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons
Share

From the The Calgary Herald – April 27, 2011

by Kelly Cryderman

CALGARY — A southern Alberta landowner who has long claimed coal bed
methane drilling polluted her well has launched a lawsuit demanding more
than $10 million each from Encana, the Alberta government and the
province’s energy regulator.

Jessica Ernst, 54, is one of
the province’s most outspoken critics of drilling methods such as
fracking — where water, chemicals and sand are blasted deep underground
to break up coal formations and release natural gas.

In a
statement of claim filed at the courthouse in Drumheller, Alta., she
states the failure of Alberta’s Environment Department and the Energy
Resources Conservation Board to investigate her case and enforce
regulations “served as a government coverup of environmental
contamination caused by the oil and gas industry.”

Ernst
claims that a decade ago Encana “began a risky and experimental drilling
program for shallow coal bed methane at dozens of wells in the area
around Rosebud,” a small hamlet northeast of Calgary.

Ernst,
an environmental consultant for the oil and gas industry who lives near
the hamlet, alleges the natural gas giant released a large amount of
contaminants into underground freshwater supplies.

“As a
result, Ms. Ernst’s water is now so contaminated with methane and other
chemicals that it can be lit on fire,” said the legal statement.

None of Ernst’s claims have been proven in court.

In
2008, an Alberta Research Council report concluded the methane found in
the wells in the area was naturally occurring, a phenomenon that exists
in parts of Alberta where underground water supplies come from coal
seams. The report stated that “energy development projects in the areas
most likely have not adversely affected the complainant water wells.”

On
Tuesday, Encana spokesman Alan Boras said the company had just become
aware of the Ernst lawsuit and “as a result we would have to review it
before we made any comment — if we did at all, because it’s before the
courts.”

Alberta Environment spokesman Trevor Gemmell also declined to comment, saying the matter is before the courts.

At the ERCB, spokesman Bob Curran said in an email the board has not been served with a statement of claim.

Ernst
will hold a news conference in Calgary Wednesday, and said in a news
release she will bring her story to the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development in New York next week.

Fracking, or
hydraulic fracturing, is a method used by drillers to extract
unconventional natural gas resources being tapped as conventional
supplies run low.

Ernst is seeking damages of at least
$11.7 million from Encana, $10.7 million from Alberta Environment and
$10.75 million from the ERCB.

Read original article

Share

Kinder Morgan shuts Trans Mountain pipeline to investigate possible oil leak

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers
Share

From the Red Deer Advocate – April 25, 2011

by Canadian Press

CALGARY — Kinder Morgan has shut
down a pipeline that runs from Alberta to the West Coast while it
investigates a possible oil leak.

The Trans Mountain pipeline was
shut down on Friday afternoon as a precaution after a small amount of
crude was found on a farmer’s field about 150 kilometres west of
Edmonton, company spokeswoman Lexa Hobenshield said Monday.

“We are investigating whether the product is from a current release or historic incident,” she said in an emailed statement.

She added it’s not yet clear
exactly how much crude spilled, or when the 300,000-barrel-per-day
system may be up and running again.

The Trans Mountain line stretches
1,150 kilometres between Edmonton and terminals in the Vancouver area
and Washington State. It carries heavy and light crude oil, as well as
refined products such as gasoline and diesel.

Houston-based Kinder Morgan
(NYSE:KMI) owns or operates nearly 60,000 kilometres of pipelines and
180 terminals in North America.

Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.
(TSX:ENB) is planning to build another pipeline from the Edmonton area
to the West Coast, called Northern Gateway.

That controversial line would
wind up much further north on the coast than Trans Mountain, to connect
with the port of Kitimat, B.C. The crude would then make its way to
Asian markets by tanker.

Enbridge grappled with two
high-profile pipeline leaks in the U.S. Midwest last summer. Outages on
those lines caused major bottlenecks for Canadian crude that was bound
for U.S. markets.

Read original article

Share

Minority Govt. & Strategic Voting to Save BC

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , , ,
Share

Two related matters today.

First, Prime Minister Harper is making a big fuss about needing a majority government. So are the Central Canadian media. I ask, what’s the matter with a minority government?

Think what the Harper government did without a majority and ask yourself what’s so good about a majority 5 year dictatorship? Why don’t the media examine what is right about a minority government.

In fact there is one extremely good thing – the government is forced to consult with other leaders both on the budget and general legislation. On the budget, the Minister of Finance can’t walk into the Chamber and say “like it or lump it – after the usual fandango and ritual speeches we, the government, are going to cram it up your…surely I need go no further.” How is that bad?

It’s the same thing with legislation and policy – there must be consultation.

It’s said that a minority government must always kiss the backside of the opposition – that is palpable nonsense. In reality minority parties while able to vote down the government rarely do. They usually are out of serious money for campaigning and don’t want an election where the government can, as here, bleat that they couldn’t get their legislation through – legislation that would end the nation’s woes and bring happiness to all.

The media claims that all the House of Commons does is bicker. But surely to God that’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s a passionate place because there blood is spilled figuratively rather than literally.

In my opinion a minority government, while far from perfect, is the best of possible results – especially for British Columbia, which needs political clout.

Let’s look at what BC needs.

Of course we have the needs of the rest of the country – health, jobs, better social policy and so on – but every party wants this, with none of them likely any better than the other.

We have a province that has growing concerns about the environment and giveaways that are features of both Victoria and Ottawa.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) are in bed with the fish farmers as memoranda leaked to the Cohen Commission clearly show. The Tories clearly support foreign corporations slaughtering our salmon in the interests of shareholders in Norway.

The Harper government supports the debasing of our environment so that large companies can make power we don’t need, that BC Hydro cannot use but is committed by contract to take and lose money on – all to the profit once more of foreign shareholders. In fact the federal government has helped fund Plutonic Power, which is General Electric in drag.

The Harper government supports the Enbridge pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat and also supports huge oil tankers taking this sludge down our coast – arguably the most treacherous coastline in the world.

What can we do about this? What can we do to ensure that if Harper forms another government we in BC will be able to rely upon a strongly built opposition to see that parliament hears our concerns?

The issue before us is a stark one: do we support the party of our usual choice and the toady they have as their candidate or do we vote strategically so as to ensure our province has clout in Ottawa?

Strategic voting means supporting the best opposition candidate and vote for him/her even though in better times you wouldn’t.

We British Columbians have three areas of concern which, if badly dealt with, will kill off our wild fisheries, bankrupt our public Hydro corporation and ensure that oil spills on land and sea will damage our province beyond repair.

The Conservative government would allow, indeed encourage these catastrophes. These environmental outrages are not the bleeding heart sort supported by flower children in days of yore – in fact they are at the very core of our way of life.

If we do not commit ourselves to fighting for the province, who will? I personally look at my nine grandchildren and my great granddaughter and conclude that this destruction can’t happen on my watch – at least not without me giving everything I have to the fight.

Let’s all join as British Columbians to send a message to Ottawa that will at least be heard in the House of Commons.

If we do that, we’re in with a chance.

If we don’t, thank God we won’t be still alive when future generations of British Columbians will look back at us with the scorn we so justly earned  

Share

Pennsylvania blowout fuels fracking fears

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons,
Share

From UPI.com – April 22, 2011

PITTSBURGH, April 22 (UPI) — A blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas
well has fueled increased concerns about the already controversial
practice of hydraulic fracking.

The well, owned by Chesapeake Energy Corp., experienced an equipment
failure Tuesday, sending chemical-laced water over the drilling site in
Bradford County, Pa. and into nearby waterways, including Towanda Creek,
which feeds into the Susquehanna River.

“There have been no injuries and there continues to be no danger to
the public,” Brian Grove, senior director for corporate development at
Chesapeake, said in a statement.

The company stopped all operations in the state and said Thursday that it had successfully sealed the leaking gas well.

The accident comes one year after an explosion sunk the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in 11 deaths and the
worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, and at a time when hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” is coming under increased scrutiny from state
and federal officials.

The technique, used to release vast reserves of natural gas buried
underground, involves massive amounts of water, sand and chemicals
injected at high pressures to fracture rock and release the stored gas.

A report released by Democratic members of Congress last week said
that more than 650 of the chemicals used in fracking were carcinogens.

In the fracking process, anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of the water
injected into the well returns to the surface carrying drilling
chemicals, high levels of salts and sometimes naturally occurring
radioactive material. The state of Pennsylvania has allowed drillers to
discharge much of the waste through sewage treatment plants into
rivers, The New York Times reports.

An investigation by the Times found that more than 1.3 billion
gallons of wastewater was produced by Pennsylvania wells over the past
three years. But treatment plants to which the wastewater was sent
weren’t equipped to remove many of the toxic materials contained in the
drilling waste.

Environmental group American Rivers has called on Congress to push
for the restoration of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to
regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act, removed
in a 2005 energy bill referred to as the “Halliburton loophole.”

“In case last year’s BP oil spill wasn’t enough of a wake-up call,
now we have another disaster, this time in Pennsylvania. The American
people have had it with the industry’s false assurances,” said Andrew
Fahlund, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers.

Pennsylvania’s massive Marcellus Shale reserve is believed to hold
enough gas to supply the country’s energy needs for heat and
electricity, at current consumption rates, for more than 15 years. Some
3,300 Marcellus gas-well permits were issued to drilling companies last
year, compared to 117 in 2007.

Read original article and watch video

Share

North Island candidates comment on oil tankers

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western Canada, ,
Share

From the Courier-Islander – April 20, 2011

For the upcoming May 2 federal election, Vancouver Island North candidates were asked:

Last
December, the House of Commons passed a motion calling for a ban on
crude-oil tanker traffic off BC’s north coast, but the motion was
non-binding and considered likely to be ignored. What’s your position
on allowing oil tanker traffic off the BC coast? What impact would such
a ban have on the Vancouver Island North riding?

NDP Candidate Ronna-Rae Leonard:

Our
coastal life is too important to our economy and our waters are too
rough to risk tanker traffic. The Exxon Valdez disaster and the BP
spill in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrate the devastation that results
from accidental spills. The sinking of the Queen of the North ferry
showed that even with navigational technology, human error can occur.

The
oil and gas companies are far more concerned about their profits than
the B.C. Coast. It is up to us to defend what is ours. A spill would
mean the end of the very basis of our livelihoods and deprive of us of
our most precious resource.

Eight in 10 British Columbians, the
vast majority of coastal First Nations, and the Canadian Parliament all
support a ban on oil tankers on BC’s Coast. Making it law will ensure
future generations do not bear the risk of a major oil disaster.

Conservative Candidate John Duncan:

Our
Conservative party’s number one priority remains the economy, which we
will balance with responsible environmental stewardship. Oil and gas
tankers go into and out of Vancouver every day. Oil and gas tankers
have more than 100 movements a year along the BC coast to service our
coastal industries and communities. Prince Rupert and Kitimat are
increasingly important ports for international trade and their
industrial infrastructure will increasingly resemble the Port of
Vancouver. The Conservative Government has no plans to re-open the 1988
Exclusion Zone on tankers travelling between Alaska and Washington
State on the B.C. Coast and we have no plans to re-open the current
moratorium on offshore oil and gas developments on the B.C. Coast.

Liberal Candidate Mike Holland:

I
believe we need a ban on oil tanker traffic off B.C.’s north coast. A
moratorium was put in place by the Liberal government in 1972 but the
Harper Conservatives refuse to recognize the moratorium, or the
incredible risk to our coastal communities, tourism and fishery
industries that tanker traffic and an oil spill would pose. That’s why I
supported the efforts in the last Parliament by Vancouver-Quadra
Liberal MP Joyce Murray to formalize the moratorium on the shipping of
crude oil in the dangerous inland waters around Haida Gwaii and off
Northern Vancouver Island with Bill C-606, and if elected I will work
in the next parliament to ensure a formal ban is passed into law. As
the moratorium has been in place since 1972 the impact of a formal ban
on our riding would be negligible, but the impact of a spill would be
tragic and irreversible.

Green Party Candidate Sue Moen:

The
Green Party of Canada continues to call for a legislated ban on bulk
oil tankers along Canada’s entire Pacific Coast and supported the
Private member’s bill calling for this, as a significant step towards
protecting BC’s coast. The proposed pipelines that would feed that
traffic have been opposed by over 80 First Nations bands and thousands
of B.C. residents.

Greens propose more marine conservation areas,
saving more boreal forest as a carbon sink and returning resource
management to local communities.

These actions create
opportunities for employment including environmental protection,
reforestation, research, eco-system rehabilitation, and in
non-extractive eco-tourism, and many more. These are sustainable jobs. A
single catastrophic spill — a certainty in the wild waters off our
coast — would devastate all of those jobs.

I don’t want to live in a world where the clean-up of an oil spill is defined as good for the economy.

Read original article

Share

Oil tankers

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers
Share

There is a site called MarineTraffic.com and it shows ship traffic all over the world.

There are tankers going in and out of Van. Harbour on a regular basis and Cherry Point [usa]. How come no one is saying any thing about saving the Gulf islands??

Also there are tankers going to Kitimat and Rupert all the time be it tugs and barges or deep sea tankers. the Alaska tankers to Anacortes come surprisingly close to the west coat of Van Isle on the way south from Alaska.

This protest of “keep Tankers out of the North coast” is unwinnable… It’s happening all the time… Has been close to a hundred years…

All we can do is regulate the hell out of them so it can be done as safely as possible… Still we all know accidents happen.

Bob Koskela
Houston, BC
Ex commercial fisherman

Share

Stephen Harper opposes banning oil tankers off B.C. coast

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers,
Share

From the Vancouver Sun – April 18, 2011

by Mark Kennedy

Conservative leader Stephen Harper says a re-elected Tory government
will not impose a legally binding ban on oil tanker traffic on the West
Coast of Canada.

Harper made the statement Sunday in response to questions from a reporter at a campaign event in Vancouver.

“I think we have been very clear on this,” said Harper.

“We
will only allow tanker traffic if we can be sure that tanker traffic is
safe. But will we ever say that we cannot have the same kind of
commerce on the West Coast as on the East Coast? Of course we’re never
going to rule out those opportunities for our country.”

Harper said he wants to “see the day” when Canada is able to continue to increase trade with Asia.

“So we’re not going to create artificial bans on the West Coast that don’t exist in other parts of the country.”

Currently,
the Canadian and U.S. coast guards have a nonbinding agreement between
themselves and the U.S. tanker industry. It was designed to lower the
risk of an oil tanker running aground off the coast of British Columbia.

The
zone, which runs from southern Alaska to the southern tip of Vancouver
Island, applies to tankers carrying oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline
to ports along the U.S. west coast.

The Conservatives have
resisted pressure from opposition MPs and environmentalists to give the
voluntary ban some teeth. The opposition parties teamed up in December
to pass an NDP motion calling on the government to legislate a ban on
tankers near the rich ecosystem of Haida Gwaii, formerly called the
Queen Charlotte Islands.

Earlier this year, the Harper government
insisted the exclusion zone is closely policed to make sure no oil
tanker traffic comes down the inside passage.

But the Canadian
Coast Guard concedes that its radar systems can only monitor tanker
traffic in the southern portion of the zone, as tankers approach the
Juan de Fuca strait between Vancouver Island and Washington State.

The coast guard must therefore rely heavily on the tanker industry to accurately report the whereabouts of vessels.

Tanker
traffic along the B.C. coast is expected to increase as energy
producers in Canada look to ship more oil and gas to growing Asian
markets.

Read original aritcle

Share

Gasoline spill likely killed thousands of Goldstream River salmon

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas,
Share

Fromt he Times-Colonist – April 17, 2011

by Kim Westad

Thousands of salmon are expected to have been killed by a large
gasoline spill that poured into Goldstream River during the weekend.

A Columbia Fuels truck smashed into the rock face and rolled, damaging the cab and one of the two tanks the engine was pulling.

About
40,000 litres of gasoline are estimated to have been spilled and much
of that flowed into the river at the side of the highway. The truck hit
the rock wall beside a small waterfall that flows across the road to the
river, and that helped move the gas.

“Gasoline is very toxic to aquatic life,” said Graham Knox, the Ministry of Environment’s manager of environmental emergencies.

Ministry
biologists, an oiled-wildlife specialist and staff from Environment
Canada were on the scene Sunday conducting an assessment of the site.
There was little apparent damage at the site itself, but as they moved
downstream toward the estuary, they saw “hundreds” of dead fish in the
water, Knox said.

With that many visible to the eye, the number killed will be significantly higher, he said — likely in the thousands.

“It is a significant amount of fish that have been killed,” he said.

Gasoline
travels and kills quickly in water. The fish would likely have died as
soon as the gasoline went into their gills, Knox said.

The
ministry tries to collect the dead fish, Knox said, so that other
animals don’t eat them and potentially ingest contaminants. It’s
unlikely the fish ingested the gas, he said, although that will be
reviewed.

Gasoline is more toxic to wildlife than other types of
oil, Knox said. The only positive is that being lighter, it evaporates
quickly and breaks up. Crude oil is more persistent and difficult to
cleanse from the environment.

Small excavators were on scene Sunday at the dump site, removing the roadside soil. It will be replaced.

The
Environmental Management Act specifies that the party at fault is
responsible for much of the remediation costs. Columbia Fuels has been
“very co-operative from the start” on that, Knox said.

“They are proceeding with all of our requests and getting the work done.”

Columbia
will hire an environmental consultant to conduct various tests of the
soil and submit a report to the Ministry of Environment, Knox said.

Read original article

Share