Crews were scrambling Friday to contain and clean up a pipeline spill that is believed to have sent up to 475,000 litres of crude oil flowing into a rain-swollen Red Deer River system in west-central Alberta.
Plains Midstream Canada says when the spill was discovered Thursday night it closed off its network of pipelines in the area.
Tracey McCrimmon, executive director of a community group that works with the industry, said it was rural homeowners who first raised the alarm about an oil pipeline spill.
She said people who live just north of Sundre phoned in reports Thursday night of smelling rotten eggs — the telltale odour of sour gas or sour oil.
“The first call that we got was at 8:40 pm. There was an odour complaint. We had multiple calls of a rotten egg smell,” said McCrimmon, director of the Sundre Petroleum Operators Group.
“We called all of the oil and gas operators within six kilometres of the area. They were able to source the odour within an hour.”
The company said the oil spilled into Jackson Creek near the community of Sundre, about 100 kilometres from Red Deer. Jackson Creek flows into the Red Deer River.
Recent heavy rains have swollen streams and rivers in the area, some to near flood stage, and local officials are concerned the oil will spread more quickly down the system.
“There’s oil in the river and the river is moving very quickly right now because of the recent rains and meltwater,” said Bruce Beattie, reeve of Mountain View County, which is on the river system.
“Certainly anything that is coming out of the pipeline or that did come out of the pipeline is certainly moving quickly down stream.
“It’s going to be a major environmental concern for sure.”
The region around Sundre is considered pristine wilderness by many in Alberta. It’s a common getaway area for people in Calgary and popular with anglers and hunters. The area where the oil spilled is sparsely populated and mostly ranch land.
Alberta Environment spokeswoman Jessica Potter said communities and individuals downstream of the spill have been told not to use river water until further notice.
“Residents in the area have been notified that a spill has taken place,” she said.
“Water intakes have been shut at all facilities downstream and we are encouraging people to shut-in their water and not draw from the river at this time.”
Premier Alison Redford headed to nearby Dixon Dam to hold a news conference Friday afternoon where she said the spill had been contained to the Glennifer reservoir and crews were working to minimize the environmental impact.
She said there will be an investigation but added that Alberta’s pipeline system is supported by a strong regulatory framework that serves as a model for other jurisdictions.
“It’s my expectation that the minister of environment and the minister of energy, as well as the (Energy Resources Conservation Board), will have to review those investigations once they’re completed to determine the cause of this incident and then to take whatever steps might need to be taken in order to prevent this in the future.”
She said until the investigation is complete, it’s too early to say whether aging infrastructure is to blame.
“Albertans have an expectation that the infrastructure that we have in place … is strong,” she said.
“It is unfortunate when these events happen. We are fortunate in this province that they don’t happen very often, and we can have some confidence that when they do happen, we have plans in place to deal with them.”
But Mike Hudema of Greenpeace said the damage has already been done to the central Alberta ecosystem. He wants a halt to approval of any new pipelines until changes and upgrades can be made to the existing infrastructure.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said changes need to be made to existing laws.
“I don’t think we’re paying adequate attention to what happens in real life versus what happens in the fossil fuel wonderland where everything goes wrong,” she said.
The sun pierces through thin slices of halibut that lie drying across cylindrical pieces of wood as Christopher Stuart continues to delicately cut more of the freshly harvested fish for the sun to bake.
Stuart, a member of Canada’s Gitga’at First Nation, is performing the task for the first time at the tribe’s annual spring harvest on Princess Royal Island, just off the coast of British Columbia. But it’s not his first time at the seasonal camp called Kiel. He has come every year since he can remember to gather with other Gitga’at to harvest halibut and seaweed.
Helen Clifton, an elder of the Gitga’at, watches him from inside a small house on the rocky shore, as she begins her 70th year at the spring harvest.
“The tide is moving on this coast, up and down,” she says. “The tide does not stand still.”
It’s an apt description for so many situations the Gitga’at and other First Nations, Canada’s indigenous communities, find themselves in, as they work to preserve their traditions while living alongside Canada’s quest to exploit the natural resources of the land that was once theirs. While the tide helps bring in the seaweed they harvest, it could just as easily be the same tide that takes away that food if the waters become Canada’s highway to global energy markets.
Calgary-based energy firm Enbridge has proposed building a pipeline from Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta to carry crude to the port of Kitimat. From there, the crude would be loaded onto tankers bound for Asia, traversing the forested coast of British Columbia.
First Nations and many other communities in British Columbia and Alberta find themselves in the middle of supply and demand – between Canada’s expanding oil industry, home to the world’s third-largest oil reserves; and the rapidly growing economies in East Asia, particularly China. Enbridge’s proposed pipeline, the $5.5bn Northern Gateway, would be the bridge. But the project would cut through the Great Bear Rainforest, a treasured nature preserve and one of the largest intact coastal rainforests in the world. This, in addition to safety concerns from environmental groups and First Nations, have been at the heart of much of the opposition to the project.
Environmental worries
Trees overwhelm the hilly islands that thread through the waterways here, a stunning confluence of mountain and sea, whales and wolves. The forest had been at risk from logging until 2006 when the provincial government, industry, environmentalists and First Nations came to an agreement to preserve large parts of the forest – a rare alliance between opposing sides.
“It’s a model for the scale of conservation that’s required to maintain ecosystem health, while at the same time supporting communities with revenue and jobs that don’t damage the ecosystem we depend on,” says Caitlyn Vernon, a campaigner with the Sierra Club of British Columbia. “Over a decade of work developing this model would be put in jeopardy by an oil spill.”
Vernon and other conservation groups say that if oil makes its way into the waters of the forest, it would cause a ripple effect through the intricately connected marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Even if there is no spill, environmentalists say increased tanker traffic could still cause damage by possibly introducing new bacteria from other waters.
The Gitga’at say they know the risks of a spill all too well. In 2006, a ferry boat travelling near their main village of Hartley Bay ran aground and sank. The ship sits at the bottom of the water just south of the bay to this day and still leaks diesel fuel into the waters in which the Gitga’at fish.
“All the promises were made and nothing happened,” says Clifton. “And today it’s still bubbling and burping.”
Enbridge acknowledges the risks of its project, but insists it has taken both the pipeline and tanker routes into serious consideration and can protect both the land and marine ecosystems.
“We’re planning on putting in place a number of risk mitigation factors. On the marine side, that includes that all tankers coming into port will be vetted by third-party experts,” Todd Nogier, an Enbridge spokesman, told Al Jazeera. “All will be boarded by British Columbia pilots who understand the area and how it behaves.” Nogier says there will also be state-of-the-art technology used for the pipeline and navigational aides installed along the tanker route to increase safer tanker traffic.
“It’s a smart way to enable Canada to move forward in an industry that is very important to the country and do something that’s an important priority for the country. And that’s finding a new market for this energy resource.”
But Enbridge faces a number of hurdles in marketing the proposal to British Columbia. One of the main selling points has been economic benefits. The firm says thousands of jobs would be created through Northern Gateway and that the project would contribute $270bn to Canada’s GDP over 30 years. But the majority of jobs would be short-term employment in the pipeline’s construction. Only a few hundred long-term jobs are expected, primarily at the marine terminal in Kitimat. Critics of Northern Gateway say far more jobs in fishing and tourism are at stake if there is a pipeline breach or oil spill.
First Nations concerns
While there has been vocal opposition from many First Nations, Enbridge says it has support from a number of bands in Alberta and British Columbia. The company is also offering communities that would be affected a 10 per cent stake in the project, in addition to a large percentage of the local jobs. It’s still a hard sell to some First Nations, such as the Haisla, who live by the port of Kitimat.
“I think that there’s definitely an area where our people need to take advantage,” says Gerald Amos, a Haisla elder. “We’re no different than other people where we require a way to sustain ourselves in today’s reality. However, there are limits to that.”
“This water was described as the dinner plate of the Haisla people,” Amos continues. “The richness here has been pretty much constant over my lifetime, but we’re now seeing a decline that I’m afraid will lead to extinction for some stocks.” Some species have already seen sharp drops, like the eulachon and salmon, particularly after restrictions on indigenous fisheries and industrial pollution over the past century. With fish as their main source of sustenance and income, the loss of key species has had a pronounced effect on their culture.
“When I’ve got some of my grandchildren out here with me, I’m always tempted to point out the places that were important for our harvesting. And they’ve got Haisla names,” says Amos, as he gestures to the vast waters surrounding his boat and village. “Once we have a generation that doesn’t understand what that is, what else is left? That’s why I’m pretty certain that an oil spill would take away whatever culture we have left.”
Following research linking neonicotinoid pesticides to the decline in bee populations, France has announced it plans to ban Cruiser OSR, an insecticide produced by Sygenta. Recent studies, including one in France, have shown that neonicotinoid pesticides likely hurt bees’ ability to navigate, potentially devastating hives. France has said it will give Sygenta two weeks to prove the pesticide is not linked to the bee decline, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
France’s decision comes after its National Agency for Food, Safety, and the Environment (ANSES) confirmed the findings of two recent studies published in Science. The two studies found that neonicotinoid pesticides, although not immediately lethal, likely hurt bee colonies over a period of time.
In the French study, researchers glued tiny microchips to free-ranging honeybees and then administered small doses of thiamethoxam, a primary ingredient in Sygenta’s Cruiser OSR to some of the bees. Bees exposed to the pesticide were two to three times more likely not to return from foraging trips, allowing researchers to hypothesize that the pesticide impairs the bee’s ability to navigate its surroundings successfully.
Because neonicotinoid pesticides work by impacting insects’ central nervous systems, they have long been a target for researchers trying to understand Colony Collapse Disorder, but the difficulty has been proving that pesticides harm hives even though they don’t kill bees outright.
However, Sygenta denies that their pesticides have played any role whatsoever in the bee collapse.
“All Syngenta’s crop protection products are thoroughly tested to ensure that there are no unwanted effects on beneficial insects such as bees or excessive residues in food or risks to human health,” the company says on its website.
The French government disagrees and has stated it would also raise the question of a ban on the pesticide for the entire European Union (UN).
Evidence of harm piling up
Despite Sygenta’s statements, studies continue to appear that find a link between neonicotinoid pesticides and Colony Collapse Disorder. Recently, researchers in the U.S. fed tiny doses of neonicotinoid pesticide-laced high-fructose corn syrup, which is commonly used to feed bees, to 16 hives in the field and left four hives untreated. For months all the hives remained healthy, but after around six months over 90 percent (15 out of 16) of the hives fed with the pesticidal corn syrup had collapsed, while the four control hives remained healthy.
“There is no question that neonicotinoids put a huge stress on the survival of honey bees in the environment,” lead author Chensheng (Alex) Lu, an associate professor at the HSPH, told mongabay.com.
Meanwhile another U.S. study published last month in the Journal of Experimental Biology, found that bees hit by neonicotinoid pesticides underwent behavioral changes. Exposed bees only fed on very sweet nectar, ultimately limiting their feeding choices. In addition the bees ability to communicate was injured.
Foraging bees communicate via ‘waggle dances’ whereby they show the hive where to find food sources. But says lead author Daren Eiri, “Remarkably, bees that fed on the pesticide reduced the number of their waggle dances between fourfold and tenfold. And in some cases, the affected bees stopped dancing completely.”
Scientists first started recording alarming declines in bees in North America in 2006. Shortly thereafter similar declines occurred throughout Europe, and have also been noted in Taiwan. While periodic colony collapses have been recorded since the 19th Century, the current crisis has proven much worst than past ones with some producers losing 90 percent of their hives. A number of theories for the collapse have been posited, including disease, parasitic mites, habitat loss, and, of course, pesticides. Many researchers have suggested a combination of these factors.
A huge spill has released 22,000 barrels of oil and water into muskeg in the far northwest of Alberta.
The spill ranks among the largest in North America in recent years, a period that has seen a series of high-profile accidents that have undermined the energy industry’s safety record. The Enbridge Inc. pipeline rupture that leaked oil near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, for example, spilled an estimated 19,500 barrels.
The most recent spill was discovered May 19 emanating from pipe belonging to Pace Oil & Gas Ltd. , a small energy company that produces about 15,000 barrels a day, roughly half of that oil.
The spill has yet to be contained, although “we’re very close,” Pace chief executive Fred Woods said in an interview Wednesday.
The spill took place roughly 20 kilometres southeast of Rainbow Lake, which is 165 km south of the Northwest Territories border. It came from above-ground piping connecting an underground pipeline to a well used for wastewater injection. The pipe was carrying an emulsion that was roughly 70 per cent water and 30 per cent oil.
As with many recent pipeline accidents, Calgary-based Pace did not detect a problem, but was informed of the leak by another company after the spill was spotted from an aircraft. The spill, which killed one duck, now covers 4.3 hectares. Mr. Woods declined comment on how long it was leaking before detection.
The company is now setting up a 50-person camp near the spill site, and has hired contract workers to clean it up. By Monday, it had recovered some 3,700 barrels of emulsion. It’s unclear how long it will take to clean up. Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board is investigating the spill.
The province has seen a spate of recent leaks. Last year, for example, the 220,000 barrel-a-day Rainbow pipeline belonging to Plains All America Pipeline L.P., spilled 28,000 barrels in northern Alberta.
The province has also seen a series of accidents on smaller gathering and distribution pipelines, which are typically run by oil and gas companies and may not receive the safety scrutiny applied to longer-haul pipes such as Rainbow. On May 8, a farmer discovered a spill of a very light oil, called condensate, in a field in central Alberta. That oil had leaked from an AltaGas Ltd. pipe delivering raw natural gas to a processing plant.
Last June, 500 barrels of oily product spilled from a pipe gathering system run by Pengrowth Energy Corp.
The water injection well connected to the leaking Pace pipe was used to dispose of waste.
A new financial analysis has found that Chevron’s $18 billion Ecuador environmental liability poses a threat of “irreparable damage” to the oil major’s global operations if the plaintiffs make good on their promise to launch legal actions to enforce the judgment in countries where Chevron has billions of dollars in assets.
The report, by social investment analyst Simon Billenness, notes that the long-running case (Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco) “is reaching its most risky phase” for Chevron after an appeals court in Ecuador upheld the judgment in January and rendered it immediately enforceable. The report notes that Chevron’s defenses have been “severely compromised” because of a separate ruling by a New York federal appellate court that vacated a preliminary injunction purporting to bar worldwide enforcement of the judgment.
The Billenness Report also notes that Chevron has yet to disclose in its public filings that its own comptroller, Rex Mitchell, quietly submitted a sworn affidavit to U.S. federal court that concluded any enforcement of the judgment will cause “irreparable damage” to the company. Chevron has been trying to downplay the risk posed by the judgment in its public filings and press releases, concluded Billenness in the report, titled An Analysis of the Financial and Operational Risks to the Chevron Corporation from Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco.
“In sworn legal statements, Chevron has admitted that the company faces ‘irreparable injury’ to [its] business relationships’ [from any enforcement of the Ecuador case] yet has consistently refused to fully characterize these risks to its shareholders,” he wrote in the report. “Shareholders are rightly questioning whether the board and management are fulfilling their fiduciary duties to properly manage the significant risks to the company’s business and value.”
The report also concluded “the enormous breadth of Chevron’s global business operations makes the company particularly vulnerable to enforcement. There are many jurisdictions around the world in which the plaintiffs could seek court recognition and enforcement of the judgment, including many where Chevron has substantial reserves and that are of strategic importance.”
Key findings of the Billenness report include:
The Ecuador judgment poses serious risks to Chevron’s worldwide operations, with the possibility of asset attachments and loss of social license to operate in new areas and markets;
Chevron’s principal legal defenses against enforcement have either been severely compromised or have failed. These include the reversal of a preliminary injunction barring enforcement and the rejection by Ecuador’s government of a private investment arbitration that tried to halt the litigation;
Chevron’s shareholders are stepping up calls for more transparent disclosure of the Ecuador liability, leading to increased pressure on management; and
Chevron risks violating securities laws for withholding material information from shareholders.
Shareholders have been speaking out against Chevron management on the Ecuador issue for some time.
Last year, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli blasted the company for “doing grave reputational damage” to itself by pursuing more legal proceedings “that only delay the inevitable…it’s time to face reality…[t]he entire case is looming like a hammer over shareholders’ heads.” And in a letter last May, several prominent institutional investors called on Chevron “to fully disclose … the risks to its operations and business from the potential enforcement” of the Ecuador judgment.
Chevron refused to even acknowledge or answer either the investor letter, according to the shareholders.
The plaintiffs have said they plan to enforce the judgment in various countries, but they have not announced any specifics other than to say Venezuela and Panama are being considered. Chevron has billions of dollars of assets in Australia, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Brazil, and Venezuela and operates in dozens of countries around the world, said Karen Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.
Billenness specializes in analyzing how environmental, social, and governance factors pose risks to shareholders. He has worked as an analyst and advisor to Trillium Asset Management and the Office of Investment of the AFL-CIO. He is a member of the U.S. Social Investment Forum and consults with entities that focus on social investing.
Tiny pieces of plastic contaminate almost every sea in the world. Now scientists have found that marine creatures like fish and birds are eating this microscopic waste, which may be harming their health.
The main concern is that microplastics are plastic pieces too small to see with the naked eye. They may be small by design, or be fragments of larger pieces of plastic waste.
Their size means they can be mistaken for food by even the smallest sea creatures, as well as large animals like seabirds and fish.
Scientists are concerned about the damage this could be causing. Plastics could block animals’ digestive systems or lower the amount of food they can eat. Not only that, but microplastics can carry toxic chemicals on their surface. So, scientists are calling for further research into pollution from microscopic waste.
“Things have progressed in terms of understanding where you can find microplastics and how much is out there, but we still haven’t worked out what damage this is doing to animals,” says Matthew Cole from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Exeter, who has co-authored a major review of all published microplastic studies.
“We’re still on the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding how these particles affect the health of marine animals,” he adds.
Mass production of plastic began in the 1940s and has since exploded. In 2009, 230 million tonnes of plastic were produced, equivalent to the weight of a double-decker bus every two seconds. The increase in large plastic waste in the sea quickly concerned people, because of its visibility. Understandably, the spread of microscopic plastic fragments has gone largely unnoticed by the general public.
But the chemicals these fragments carry may be more dangerous than the plastics themselves. Plastic often contains additives to make it last longer. These additives can be harmful to health, changing hormonal patterns in fish and birds. And, because plastics are oil-based, they are particularly good at attracting waterborne pollutants from other sources.
These persistent organic pollutants can lead to hormone disruption, development problems and cancer. If marine animals swallow tiny plastic particles, the chemicals on their surface could be easily taken up.
“Almost like a Trojan horse, microplastics can help transfer potentially dangerous chemicals to animals,” Cole explains.
The scientists also looked at where these microplastics come from. Some are designed to be microscopic. These include the beads used in exfoliating facial washes, as well as those used in air-blasters to remove rust and paint from the hulls of boats. Other microplastics may be fragments of bigger objects, from plastic bags to fishing gear.
Half the world’s population lives within just 50 miles of the coast, so it’s easy to see how plastic waste gets into the marine environment. It finds its way into storm drains and sewage systems, where it slips through the filters in wastewater treatment works into rivers and out to sea. Around 80 percent of plastic debris in the sea comes from inland.
Now, Cole is trying to work out whether the tiniest sea creatures, called zooplankton, can take up microplastics. This is the first stage in trying to understand whether these particles can travel up the food chain. If they can get into zooplankton, then they could be passed on to bigger animals that eat them. This so-called trophic transfer could ultimately affect us too.
“If they’re trophically transferred they could end up in the human food supply,” says Cole. “But, without doing a lot more work we won’t know what the full effects of these compounds are.”
