Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency in the Siberian city of Norilsk, after 20,000 tons of fuel spilled into a nearby river from a power station.

An environmental group has described the damage as "catastrophic," and the concentration of contaminants in nearby waters has already exceeded permissible levels tens of thousands of times over, according to Russian environmental agency Rosprirodnadzor. The power station's employees originally tried to contain the spill on their own and did not report the incident to emergency services for two days, head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Evgeny Zinichev said during a Wednesday meeting chaired by Putin and shown on national television.

"So what, we are going to learn about emergencies from social media now? Are you okay over there?" Putin said, chiding Krasnoyarsk governor, Alexander Uss and managers of the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company, which operates the station, for a delayed response after local authorities learned about the spill from social media.

The Investigative Committee, Russia's top law enforcement body, said Tuesday a criminal probe had been launched into 20,000 tons of diesel fuel spilling into a Norilsk river following "unexplained decompression" of a storage tank.

Nornickel, the energy company's parent, said the foundation of the storage tank possibly sank due to thawing permafrost, highlighting the dangers increasingly warming temperatures pose to Arctic infrastructure and ecosystems, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

"Right now we can assume... that due to abnormally mild summer temperatures recorded in the past years, permafrost could have melted and the pillars under the platform could have sank," said Nornickel chief operating officer, Sergey Dyachenko, according to the TASS news agency. Northern Asia, especially above the Arctic Circle in Siberia, has seen the most above-normal temperatures on the planet so far in 2020. Through the first four months of the year, the region has seen temperatures more than 4 degrees Celsius above normal on average.


The Arctic region is warming, on average, twice as fast as the rest of the planet, as a consequence of global warming, scientists say.

The local authorities said the spill might take weeks to start a clean up as the region lacks expertise in utilizing such amounts of fuel, the river is not navigable and there are no roads surrounding it. Additional groups of experts are being deployed from other regions following the state of emergency.


"The incident led to catastrophic consequences and we will be seeing the repercussions for years to come," Sergey Verkhovets, coordinator of Arctic projects of Russia's WWF branch, said in a statement. "We are talking about dead fish, polluted plumage of birds, and poisoned animals."


Norilsk has been historically among one of the world's most polluted cities. According to a 2018 NASA study based on satellite data, Norilsk tops the list for worst sulphur dioxide pollution, spewing 1.9 million tons of the gas over the Arctic tundra.
Source

A satellite view at what rivers Ambarnaya and Daldykan outside Norilsk look now after the spill of more than 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel pic.twitter.com/Wwpx2UqsLp

— The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) June 4, 2020

Jan 30, 2017: The pipeline ruptured around 4 pm Monday afternoon on Highway 121, about a mile away south of Highway 160 in Blue Ridge.

 Billy Brummett lives in Desert, just down the road. He tells us when he first heard the sirens, he thought it was another wreck at the intersection.

“A neighbor came by showed me a picture she’d taken of the geyser of the oil shooting," Brummett said.

We're told a contractor for TxDOT accidentally cut a 30-inch high pressure oil line, spraying crude oil all over the highway.

“Construction’s going on and that’s a deep ditch and things they’re cutting over there for the new highway so it’s not a big surprise to me," Brummett said.

The line was shut off within minutes of being cut, but continued to spill oil from what was left inside. The area was immediately placed under quarantine while crews began the cleanup process.


“The roadway’s shut down be patient with us and they’re going to get it opened up as soon as they can,” Blue Ridge Fire Captain Bonnie Bowers said.

Traffic was diverted on highway 160 due to the closure.

Multiple fire departments were at the scene. No injuries were reported.


It's unclear how much crude oil was spilled or if it poses an environmental risk.

News12 put in calls to Enterprise Products, the company that operates the pipeline, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality but have yet to hear back from either.
Source 

Jan 24, 2017: About 200,000 litres of oil spilled near Stoughton, Sask., last week. The pipeline breach occurred on First Nations land about 140 kilometres southeast of Regina. The spill covered an approximately 20-metre radius.

The provincial government was notified of the spill on Friday evening "as soon as the leak was detected," a government email said. Media were notified Monday afternoon.

The pipeline was shut down when the breach was discovered, and the spill is fully contained. The source of the leak is not yet known.

The oil did not enter any water sources but covered agricultural land, the email said. The site was described as a low-lying area with a frozen slough.

The spill has not affected air quality or wildlife as of yet, the government said.

Cleanup, led by Calgary-based Tundra Energy Marketing Inc., began on Saturday. As of Monday, 170,000 litres of oil had been recovered, the email said.


Doug MacKnight, assistant deputy minister with the Economy Ministry's petroleum and natural gas division, said there are multiple pipelines in the area of the leak. Until the site is excavated Wednesday, it will not be known which one is responsible. However, the Tundra-operated pipeline is thought to be the source.

Chief Connie Big Eagle of the Ocean Man First Nation visited the site last weekend. Representatives from Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada have taken the federal lead in the response.

"The first phase of getting the oil out of there should happen fairly quickly, but how long it'll take to bring it back, that's some reclamation work that's going to have to get done," MacKnight said.


Typically the company operating the pipeline is required to remediate and reclaim the land back to its original state, MacKnight said. Any compensation would have to be discussed between the federal government, the company operating the pipeline and the band.

The spill comes seven months after a 225,000-litre Husky oil spill, in which some entered the North Saskatchewan River.

It is unclear if there has been an inspection done on the pipeline in recent months, MacKnight said. If there had been any inspection, responsibility would be company's, he added.
Source

For nearly two weeks, Exxon has maintained that oil has not reached Lake Conway, despite clear evidence both from aerial video and on-the-ground guerrilla reporting that showed oil had spread throughout a cove and wetlands, which are connected through ground water and drainage culverts to the main body of the lake. Images captured Wednesday night should put any doubt to rest that the main body of Lake Conway is now contaminated with oil.

Citizen journalists, Jak and Lauren, reporting for Tar Sands Blockade, braved the severe weather Wednesday, which included hail, lighting and chance of tornados, to report on what was happening to the site of the oil spill.

Using the live video streaming service, UStream, Jak and Lauren broadcast from multiple locations, including the contaminated cove, Highway 89 that separates the cove and Lake Conway and the wetlands that were first documented in the now viral Tar Sands Blockade video.

A couple pieces of important news were reported by the duo Wednesday night. Their footage is not currently available to embed, but I took screenshots of their live broadcast to show what they were witnessing. I'll embed the video when it becomes available.

Here is a shot of the cove during heavy rains, taken from the yard of a resident that granted them permission to report from their property.
Read More


Video streaming by Ustream


Video streaming by Ustream

OGDEN, Utah – A pair of young beavers credited for helping keep an oil spill out of Willard Bay are now recovering in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Ogden.

A Chevron fuel spill was discovered near Willard Bay on Monday afternoon and crews spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday working to repair the broken 8-inch pipeline that caused the spill and the fuel that had spread through the area.

Cleanup crews say a beaver dam helped stop the fuel from reaching Willard Bay, but a pair of beavers were covered in the fuel and sent to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Ogden for cleanup and recovery.

Employees at the center spent six hours bathing the two beavers, washing them twice with Dawn dish detergent. The pair were put on medication to help recover.

The beavers were reported doing a little better on Wednesday. One of the two is still lethargic, nauseated and didn’t have much of an appetite. The second has started moving around and has started eating a bit.


Rehabilitators say they’re taking the recovery one day at a time and hoping to prevent further damage, including neurological damage.

“They can absorb the substance through their skin. They face things like liver issues, it burns their eyes, respiratory issues, digestive issues, so whenever you get that it’s a little bit frightening,” said Dalyn Erickson with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah.

The beavers are just under a year old, and crews are hoping they’ll eventually be nursed back to health and returned to the wild.
Source

(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil on Sunday continued cleanup of a pipeline spill that loosed thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian crude in Arkansas as opponents of oil sands development latched on to the incident to attack plans to build the Keystone XL line.

Exxon's Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Pakota, Illinois to Nederland, Texas, was shut after the leak was discovered late Friday afternoon in a subdivision near the town of Mayflower. The leak forced the evacuation of 22 homes.

The company did not have an estimate for the restarting of the pipeline, which was carrying Canadian Wabasca Heavy crude at the time of the leak. An oil spill of more than 1,000 barrels into a Wisconsin field from an Enbridge pipeline last summer kept that line shuttered for around 11 days.

The Arkansas spill drew fast reaction from opponents of the 800,000 bpd Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry heavy crude from Canada's tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast refining center.

Environmentalists have expressed concerns about the impact of developing the oil sands and say the crude is more corrosive to pipelines than conventional oil. On Wednesday, a train carrying Canadian crude derailed in Minnesota, spilling 15,000 gallons of oil.

"Whether it's the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, or ... (the) mess in Arkansas, Americans are realizing that transporting large amounts of this corrosive and polluting fuel is a bad deal for American taxpayers and for our environment," said Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.


Supporters of Keystone XL and oil sands development say the vast Canadian reserves can help drive down fuel costs in the United States. A report from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, put together by oil and gas consultancy Penspen, argued diluted bitumen is no more corrosive than other heavy crude.

CLEANUP

Exxon said that by 3 a.m. Saturday there was no additional oil spilling from the pipeline and that trucks had been brought in to assist with the cleanup. Images from local media showed crude oil snaking along a suburban street.


Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration were deployed to the scene.

"Cleanup efforts are progressing 24 hours a day," said Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers, who added the oil had not leaked into nearby Lake Conway.

"We were very fortunate that the local responders made sure the oil did not enter the water."
Source

The sit-in, which organizers call an “historic act of peaceful civil disobedience,” is scheduled for Oct. 22 to protest the proposed pipeline that would bring bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to Kitimat on the west coast. Tankers would then ship the oil to Asian markets.

The protest will be attended by business, First Nations, environmental, labour, academic, medical, and artistic communities across Canada, according to Greenpeace Canada.

Over 80 community, union, business and First Nation leaders have publicly endorsed the protest, including Stephen Lewis, David Suzuki, Maude Barlow, and Naomi Klein, Greenpeace said.

“There are moments in history when it’s clear that our elected leaders are failing us and it is necessary to take a stand,” said author and environmentalist Tzeporah Berman in a posting on Greenpeace Canada’s website.

“Today we are stating our intention to defend our coast and calling on others to join us. The risk of oil spills and irreversible harm to our tourism and fishing industries from these pipelines and tankers is just too great.”

After a break on Sept. 8, a Joint Review Panel resumed hearings in Edmonton to assess the environmental impact of the $6-billion project. The hearings, mandated by the Minister of the Environment and the National Energy Board, are scheduled to conclude by April 2013 and include public consultation.

On Monday, lawyers for an aboriginal group fighting the project questioned Enbridge officials about the possibility of Chinese investment buying control over the pipeline and oil supply. Lawyers for environmental groups raised similar concerns earlier this month.

A police officer watches over protesters who crossed a barricade to take part in a sit-in against the Keystone XL pipeline on Parliament Hill in September 2011. A similar mass sit-in at the B.C. legislature is being planned to protest the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

This week for the first time, Enbridge officials will have an opportunity to address questions at the hearings.

Janet Holder, Enbridge’s executive vice president in charge of western access, said in a news release that the company “believes that the concerns expressed by Canadians to date, and particularly those living in British Columbia, can be addressed in a reasonable and responsible way.”

While proponents argue the 1,170-km dual line is needed to open up Canada’s oil exports to Asia and will add billions to the GDP, opponents and those living along the route fear the fallout from possible spills.

The Victoria sit-in aims to build on the success of other protests against oil sands expansion and proposed pipelines that have taken place in recent years.


The August 2011 sit-ins in Washington, D.C., that helped delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and the September 2011 sit-in in Ottawa are noted by organizers as inspirational examples.

 “We hope people from all walks of life and from across the country join us in Victoria and defend the natural beauty and cultural richness of the B.C. coastline,” said Chief Jackie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation, whose territory in central B.C. would be impacted by the pipeline.

 “We will be there to show the widespread opposition to tar sands pipelines and tanker proposals and to show the strength of the support for First Nations people’s rights to land and title and the internationally protected right to free, prior, and informed consent on any development impacting our traditional territories.” In another effort to stop the pipeline, a petition started by Kelowna resident James MacGregor has surpassed its goal of 10,000 signatures and now aims to reach 20,000. MacGregor plans to deliver the signed petition to Ottawa on Oct. 1. ( Source )

Good news for the arctic today! Shell Oil has announced that it has called off plans to drill for oil and gas off Alaska this year after a spill containment system crucial to the company’s efforts to explore in the icy Arctic waters was damaged during a test. Commonly referred to as the “Polar Bear Seas,” the Arctic Beaufort and Chukchi Seas were in imminent danger from Shell's proposed drilling projects that had the potential to devastate the Arctic ecosystems.

Shell had spent $4.5 billion over the span of seven years avoiding environmental lawsuits and investing in environmental protections. But safety precautions proved too difficult against the Arctic’s unpredictable environment. According to Shell's spokesperson, Kelly op de Weegh, the company had successfully completed a series of tests of the first-ever Arctic Containment System, but the containment dome on board the company’s Arctic Challenger barge was damaged during a final test.

De Weegh was quoted as saying, “The time required to repair the dome, along with steps we have taken to protect local whaling operations and to ensure the safety of operations from ice-flow movement, have led us to revise our plans for the 2012-2013 exploration program.”

Environmental groups were very happy with the announcement though and agreed that the latest problem just shows the company is ill-prepared to deal with the harsh Arctic climate. According to Niel Lawrence, attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “If you can’t even test your safety systems in calm waters without damaging them, you’ve got no business drilling for oil in the Arctic."

Some of the environmental concerns about Shell's drilling for oil are irreversible damage to endangered species, irreparable oil spills and draining the resources of native communities. These are just a few of the injustices that signers of a Care2 petition hoped to avoid with almost 64,000 signatures against the drilling.

This is a huge victory for environmentalists, but the fight is far from over. This is only a postponement by Shell Oil ,not an end to their plans to continue to drill. Shell is driven by a potential 400,000 barrels of oil a day and an eventual 10 billion in profits to continue. However, Shell must now wait until its equipment is repaired and the harsh Arctic’s winter ends before resuming drilling. The company hopes to finish the multi-billion dollar project it started by next summer and before its expensive permits expire. But for now the Arctic can breathe a little easier.

Protesters from the Tsleil Waututh and Squamish First Nations travelled along a ceremonial route from Ambleside Park, just west of Lions Gate Bridge, before heading through Burrard Inlet and then east towards Cates Park in Deep Cove.

Others from Vancouver Island and Washington were expected to join the paddle, which culminated with both First Nations signing a joint declaration against the pipeline project to deliver oil to tankers on B.C.'s coast.

Leah George-Wilson, a former chief of the Tsleil Waututh First Nation, said her band is concerned about increased tanker traffic.

"Not just tanker traffic, but super tankers. They'll be doubling those numbers as well. It isn't a potential of a spill, it's when a spill will happen, we've already seen spills," she said

"Our old people have said, 'When the tide goes out, the table is set' but that currently isn't the case any longer," she added, talking about food sources on the coast. "We can eat the crabs from the beaches but we can't eat the clams or the mussels. There are fish that still go through but our inlet has been heavily impacted."

Kinder Morgan has said it wants to twin its existing Trans Mountain Pipeline that carries various oil products from Alberta to the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, where they are loaded onto tankers in Vancouver Harbour.

The proposed $5-billion expansion project would increase the 1,150-kilometre pipeline's capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 850,000 barrels per day, requiring an increase in the size and number of tankers passing through Vancouver Harbour.

That prospect has mobilized opponents concerned about the increased possibility of environmental disaster from an oil spill on land or in the sea.

In July, more than 300 people packed a community hall in B.C. Premier Christy Clark's Vancouver Point Grey riding to voice their concerns over the proposed pipeline expansion. (Source)

Two of the world's last uncontacted tribes are under threat from oil exploration deep into the heart of the Amazon forest in Ecuador, according to conservationists, who say this may indirectly add to the pressure on wildlife.

The Tagaeri and the Taromenane – who have fought off illegal loggers and Catholic missionaries with spears and blowpipes to maintain their isolated, nomadic existence – are now at risk from the construction of roads and drilling wells as petroleum firms carve up the Yasuni national park.

Scientists believe Yasuni is the most biodiverse place on Earth and large swaths of the park remain in pristine condition thanks partly to the ferocity of the indigenous people's resistance to intruders.

That is changing. Although the rights of these tribes are recognised by the country's constitution, their existence has been largely ignored by government authorities responsible for drawing up the boundaries for development, say researchers who have studied their interaction with often-violent and lawless frontiers of globalisation.

The Taromenane – known locally as the "red feet" – are thought to be offshoots of the Huaorani, who speak the same language but have suffered a very different fate. The Huaorani – which means "human being" – also used to be almost entirely carnivorous nomads and fearsome defenders of their rainforest home. They resisted contact until 1958, but now most are settled, often around oil well communities with whom they have a parasitic relationship.

Carlos Andrés Vera, the director of a documentary about the the uncontacted tribes, says the Huaorani take money from the petroleum companies in return for a promise not to attack. "They may do a show and dance naked, but it's basically extortion. I don't blame them. The Huaorani have learned about citizenship from Ecuador's mafia: the army, oil firms and illegal loggers."


The Huaorani and uncontacted tribes have also lost much of their territory to other tribes that were quicker to embrace modernity and strikes land deals with the authorities. The Kichwa indigenous group have moved from spears and blowpipes to guns and eco-tourism within three generations. They say the other tribes chose isolation.

"We call them savages," said Silvana Tangoy, a Kichwa guide who performs traditional dances for visiting tourists. "We tried to get in touch with them, but they responded with spears so we leave them now. That's fine. They can do what they want in the park. They don't want to be civilised." The issues of the tribes is compounded by political sensitivities and the polarisation of opinion between those who call them violent savages and want to seize their land and those who feel they are vulnerable and can do no wrong.

The zoologist Rob Wiliams, who is one of the few people to have seen members of the uncontacted tribes, says franker discussions with and about indigenous people forced into transition are vital because once tribes have access to roads, guns and healthcare, their numbers grow rapidly and so does their impact on other species.

"With a bow and arrow, it was hard to kill an animal like the tapir, but now it's easy. That's why we are seeing overhunting and falling densities of wildlife," said Williams, a representative of the Frankfurt Zoological Society. "The biggest conservation issue in the Amazon is the indigenous people in protected areas, but no one wants to talk about it."
SOURCE

The Yinka Dene Alliance, a group of five First Nations in the B.C. Interior, issued a statement Saturday, saying it rejects Clark's "sales pitch."

The B.C. government said earlier this week it won't support the $6-billion Enbridge project until five environmental and fiscal conditions are met, including B.C. getting a much larger share of economic benefits such as resource royalties or other tax revenue.

Another of the five conditions is that legal requirements for aboriginal and treaty rights must be addressed and First Nations be allowed to benefit from the project.

However, the aboriginal groups claim the premier is bargaining with land that they say will never be for sale at any price.

"It is absolutely unacceptable for our premier to play a game of The Price is Right while putting our lands, our waters and our futures at risk to devastating oil spills," said Terry Teegee, tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.

"This is our lives, the well-being of our families that she is playing with. We won't let her sell our lands out from under us."

Chief Martin Louie of the Nadleh Whut'en First Nation said the government can't "put a price tag on our future," adding that the alliance is committed to fighting the project.

"Clark has admitted that B.C. will take 100 per cent of the risks from tankers and most of the pipeline risk. For her to turn around the next day and start bargaining for royalties - that's knowingly trying to sell all British Columbians out," Louie said.

On Friday, Clark refused to sign onto any national energy strategy until B.C.'s dispute with Alberta and the federal government over the Northern Gateway oil pipeline is resolved.

The Enbridge project would carry oilsands crude, or bitumen, from northern Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., for shipment to Asia.

SOURCE: The StarPhoenix

The Obama administration will go ahead with more drilling in Arctic waters, though at a pace that allows for more research before additional permits are granted.

The administration will hold new lease sales for oil companies to drill in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas just north of Alaska, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters.

But the new leases won't be issued until 2016, allowing more time so that nations bordering the Arctic can identify the region's resources and figure out which areas need to be protected.

"These resources, if developed safely, can be an important component to the all-of-the-above energy strategy," said Salazar.

The plan is apparently designed to please both environmentalists and drilling advocates, though it risks irking everyone.

Of ice and oil in Alaska

Industry types would prefer a much faster timetable to get the drilling going, while many opponents want it halted permanently.

The administration is hoping the move will defray criticism that it's not moving fast enough to allow more domestic energy production.

But that seems unlikely.

"Only now that excuses are running out are they moving forward as slowly as possible," said a spokeswoman for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.


Obama has attempted to take a middle-of-the-road approach to energy development throughout his presidency.

He's resumed leasing in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP (BP) disaster, plans to allow drilling in the Arctic, and has done little to restrict hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking -- in domestic oil and gas fields despite fears that the process is contaminating ground water.

But the number of permits issued and acres available for drilling have generally been lower under Obama's administration than in George W. Bush's administration, which preceded it.

On Tuesday, Salazar said it's "highly likely" the final permits for Royal Dutch Shell's (RDSA) Arctic drilling operation, set for this summer, will be issued shortly.

Shell won its Arctic leases during the Bush administration, but its final permits to drill have so far not been granted by Obama. Sources expect the final OK to come this week. (SOURCE)

About half a million litres of light sour crude spilled into the Red Deer River with some of it washing into the Gleniffer reservoir, which provides thousands of Albertans with drinking water.

Neither Alberta Health Services nor the City of Red Deer have issued boil water advisories or drinking water advisories in Red Deer, Red Deer County or Mountain View County.

The province is continuing to monitor water and air quality.

"Below the boom containment meets Canadian drinking water standards," said Alberta Environment spokesperson Jessica Potter on Sunday about some initial results that were sent to the lab. "Those are first results, so that's a really good sign."

Water is not to be used for drinking for both humans and animals from north of Sundre to the reservoir.

The company responsible for the pipeline rupture, Plains Midstream Canada, has been trucking water in for residents in the area.

To access the water delivery program, residents are being advised to visit the resident information centre at the James River Community Hall, which is open from 4-8 p.m. this week.

A news conference with Plains Midstream Canada is scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m. to update the public on the situation.

Area residents say smell made them sick

Ila Johnson and her husband live on a farm near Sundre that has been in their family's name for more than half a century. She was working out in the yard the day of the spill and said a "horrible smell" floated in and they couldn't tell exactly what it was, but it kept getting stronger.

Johnson phoned the Sundre Petroleum Operators Group, which notified Plains Midstream Canada's 24-hour control centre in Olds, Alta., about the spill on Thursday night.

"I decided to go to the hospital because I just couldn't catch my breath," she said.

Johnson said this is the third spill that they have lived through on the Red Deer River — one in 1994 that had a big impact, one in 2008 and the most recent one this past week — and her family has developed "hyper-reactive airways."

She said her farm can't produce food right now and the spill has a huge impact on everybody in the area: ranchers, resort operators and people looking to enjoy Gleniffer Lake — a popular fishing and boating spot.

There are land agents at the resident information centre who are currently taking complaints about losses, which may turn into compensation claims in the future.

"I can't imagine being downstream and having to use that water ... there are so many chemicals even if they clear up the spill," Johnson said.

Last fall, between September and December, there was a pipeline on her property that had three breaks. She would like to see safer practices, like not putting pipelines through rivers, and worries about the integrity of older pipelines.

Johnson said there is a lot of oil and gas activity in the area and her property is totally surrounded by pipelines and facilities.

Wildlife impacts

At least two birds have been affected by the oil spill, according to officials.

Plains Midstream Canada said it has eight teams out looking for wildlife that may have been affected.

Company vice-president Stephen Bart said so far there have been few confirmed reports of animals in distress.

He said some of the people on foot patrols are carrying noise devices to scare birds away from oil-affected areas and they have set up flags and visual deterrents to try to keep wildlife away from the site.

Bart said there were two strokes of luck that prevented last week's spill from being much worse than it is.

He said one was the fact oil wasn't flowing through the pipeline at the time.

And Bart said because the Red Deer River was swollen with recent rain, it washed the oil to the Gleniffer reservoir where it can be more easily contained by booms.

He said that left only localized pockets of oil on the river.
Source

SUNDRE, Alta. - 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 community of Sundre is upriver from the spill, but Red Deer is downstream.

The City of Red Deer has been told booms will be set up on the river near the Dickson dam and Gleniffer reservoir.

Leslie Chivers, a city spokesman, said people in Red Deer have been told there is nothing to worry about.

"I hesitate to use the word concern because if they can clean up the spill, then life is normal," Chivers said. "We are monitoring the situation at this time. And if things change, then we'll advise residents of further actions that will be happening."

Plains Midstream said it was light sour crude that spilled. It said Alberta energy regulators and government health and environment officials are monitoring water and air quality in the area.

"Light sour crude oil has a strong petroleum odour but this odour does not pose a health or safety risk to the public," the company said in a news release.

Company vice president Stephen Bart expressed regret.

"We deeply regret this incident and are working to ensure we're doing all we can to limit the extent of the release and any community and environmental impacts," he said in a statement. "We're committing the resources necessary to mount a full-scale response."



Staff at the Gleniffer Lake Resort on the shores of the reservoir said the company told them to stop using water from the lake and was hauling fresh water in for them. Otherwise, they said they hadn't noticed the spill.

The spill comes as Plains Midstream continues to clean up an April 29, 2011, pipeline spill of 4.5 million litres of oil northeast of Peace River, Alta.

That leak — one of the largest in Alberta history — happened in a remote area on the 772-kilometre, 44-year-old Rainbow line between Zama, Alta. and Edmonton.

Early estimates suggested that spill was only several hundred barrels of oil. It wasn't until four days later that the energy board reported the full extent of the leak from a centimetre-wide crack around the bottom of the pipe.

Energy critics and conservation groups say the spill near Sundre raises new questions about pipeline safety, monitoring and the enforcement of environmental regulations.

"Albertans should be extremely concerned that these pipeline spills keep happening and the weak detection systems in place," said Madeline Wilson of the Alberta Wilderness Association.

Alberta's Opposition Wildrose Party called the spill further evidence the government is failing to effectively enforce the energy industry.



"Our regulations are no good unless we have the boots on the ground to enforce them," said Wildrose environment critic Joe Anglin. "There is no reason why these kinds of spills should be occurring in Alberta."

Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board estimates there are about 400,000 kilometres of energy-related pipelines criss-crossing Alberta.

The conservation board is responsible for regulating pipelines that begin and end in Alberta. Pipelines that cross provincial boundaries or the U.S. border are regulated by the federal National Energy Board.

Since the Rainbow spill and a handful of less serious ones that followed, environmentalists have stepped up their calls for Alberta's regulators to review how aging oil pipelines are monitored and maintained.

But the regulator argues pipelines in the province have never been safer. It cites 2010 statistics that showed 1.6 incidents per thousand kilometres of pipeline.

(The Canadian Press, CKGY, CFFR)

Natives downstream from the oilsands in northern Alberta say they have caught more deformed fish in Lake Athabasca and will be sending them away for testing.

Pictures of two fish, a sucker and a northern pike, were distributed by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation on Friday. The band has long called for better protection of the region's water.

Chief Allan Adam said he is concerned that changes to the Federal Fisheries Act will favour industrial development over the protection of fish.

The pike, which Adam said was caught near the community on Wednesday, appears to have a red lesion running down its back and more lesions on its belly. The sucker, which Adam said was also caught Wednesday, was found floating near-death on the surface. It is missing a lot of its scales.

"It ain't natural, no," Adam said in a phone interview from the fly-in community, which is on the southwestern end of Lake Athabasca near the provincial boundary with the Northwest Territories.

"At this point in time we are trying to determine what the cause of it is, but when I show it to some of the elders here in the community, they say for a fact that all of their life ... they haven't seen stuff like that happen to fish."

In 2010, the band showed off deformed fish caught in the lake to back a call for further study of water quality downstream of the oilsands. Pictures of the fish beamed around the world and became a rallying point for critics. The move came right before a tour of the region by heavyweight Hollywood director James Cameron and the First Nation was a focus of his visit.

Dave Ealey with Alberta Environment noted that there are a number of different conditions that can cause abnormalities in fish from parasites to oxygen depletion. Looking at the picture of the pike, Ealey wondered if it might have been injured escaping a net.



"I wouldn't say that it's not natural," Ealey said. "These things, they do happen naturally and we want to be able to assess which situations are as a result of human activity and which are basically showing us the normal range of unusual conditions that fish express."

There have been fish tales from the region before.

In 2008, a goldeye was caught on Lake Athabasca that appeared in a photo as if it had two mouths. While it was initially suggested the fish was an example of how pollution can mutate wildlife, a University of Alberta biologist eventually determined that the second jaw was actually the fish's tongue that was pulled through its mouth by ligaments contracting during death.

Alberta is increasing its pollution monitoring in the oilsands region after its old approach came under criticism by scientists both at home and abroad.

Just this week, the government confirmed it has moved forward on a plan for the number of monitoring sites to be increased by more than 50 per cent in the next three years. The new approach includes looking for hazardous chemicals ignored under the old plan and extending the geographic reach into Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.

Also this week, a study done by two Environment Canada scientists was publish in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring.

Looking at all available monitoring data -- some that went as back as far as 1978 -- the researchers found that mercury levels have decreased in several species of fish in the Athabasca River and Lake Athabasca.

The report's abstract concedes that the data was gleaned from studies with different methodologies and recommends future monitoring of mercury in fish be more rigorous.

The Fisheries Act changes were woven throughout the federal government's budget implementation bill and come in two steps.

One provision comes into effect immediately. It maintains some protection of fish habitat, but gives Ottawa more leeway to allow exceptions. The second phase is to come later and will allow industrial development as long as fish deemed important for commercial or aboriginal use or for a sports fishery aren't actually killed.

Critics say that favours industrial development and resource extraction over the protection of fish habitat. Under the current system, if companies want to mine or drill or run a pipeline, they have to ensure they don't disrupt fish habitat. If they do, they must provide a new habitat for the fish.

Habitat is not the main concern under the new provisions. They look at the fish themselves.

Federal ministers say they need the new rules because too much development is held up by legislation that protects ditches, puddles and minor streams.

Ealey said the province is willing to examine the fish caught in Fort Chipewyan this week.

Adam said the fish will be sent to a Canadian Co-operative Wildlife Health Centre in Calgary for analysis.
SOURCE

It's been two years since the Deepwater Horizon disaster unleashed 4.9 million barrels of oil on the Gulf of Mexico. In the midst of the disaster, BP and its contractors did everything they could to keep people from seeing the scale of the disaster. But new photos released Monday offer some new insight to just how grim the Gulf became for sea life.

The images were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that Greenpeace filed back in August 2010, asking for any communication related to endangered and threatened Gulf species. Now, many months later, Greenpeace received a response from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that included more than 100 photos from the spill, including many of critically endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles dead and covered in oil.

Most photos are missing dates and descriptions, though the FOIA request covered the period of April 20, 2010, to July 30, 2010. But they're pretty shocking—which is probably why they weren't made public at the height of the spill. "It just makes me furious," said John Hocevar, a marine biologist who works for Greenpeace. "I had so many conversations with people in various government agencies working on the Gulf spill, and I feel like they were hiding things from all of us."

"The White House was sitting on this stuff for over two years, at the same time they were saying everything was fine, that the oil was gone, and while they were rushing ahead with plans for new drilling in the Gulf, the Arctic, elsewhere," Hocevar continued. "It's just not okay. This is not an acceptable type of collateral damage."

Via Mother Jones