Saskatchewan Oil Spill

[bob vernon]

Husky Oil's response for the protection of wildlife along the river: one person. The spill has now travelled more than 200 kilometres downstream. The feeble response of ONE person to deal with this spill just shows how BigOil feels about the situation.

Also, keep in mind that this spill could not be contained by booms floating on the surface. Why? Because it is heavy bitumen. Only a very small portion of the oil floats to the surface. The rest sinks to the bottom in the cold water, along with the carcinogenic chemicals used to dilute the bitumen. The heavier oil and the chemicals sit there and slowly spread downstream, gradually releasing the chemicals over an unknown time.

Of course it shouldn't be just left to flush downstream, but what else can they do. There will be an "end" declared to this incident over the coming weeks, but that streak of heavy oil and deadly chemicals will remain in the river for a long time. Prince Albert, Melfort, and other cities and towns along the river will go back to drawing their water from the river. The provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan will continue to press to get a pipeline for this crud built through BC.
Refine it as close to the source as possible.

[dontrump]

An incident report about the Husky Energy oil spill in Saskatchewan says a pipeline leak was first detected last Wednesday night, approximately 14 hours before crews arrived on the scene to shut it off

personally I find it incredible in this day and age that the people responsible are this *removed* stupid
HOW could it have taken 14 hours? same ole deal just like government no accountability
heads should roll over this

[bob vernon]

Still hard to find anything in this story about, or from, Brad "Pipeline" Wall. But then the Bradster doesn't like being associated with negative news stories.

[hobbyguy]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/husky-oil-spill-government-july-28-update-1.3699007

So these guys protocol when they detect a leak is to send a crew out and see if it is leaking. Why wouldn`t the protocol be to shut it down, and then go see if there isn`t a leak..

[bob vernon]

In this news clip from P.A. (and I used the CTV clip, not the evil, leftist CBC one), it seems that no one has done any research on how this type of bitumen reacts when it is spilled into water. This means that that this pipeline crossing of the river was approved with this vital piece of information missing. They're out on the water in boats trying to find out this information on the fly. The dilutant keeps surfacing with the black synthetic crude oozing downstream along the bottom. This spill might never be cleaned up.

http://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=920978

Access to this spill is easy in the summer. Imagine this spill in the winter. With the river covered with ice. And trying to supply water to the city at -30 degrees.

"Canada's pipeline industry has world class spill technology." So we were assured. Can't wait until we have one of these pipelines crossing BC.

[hobbyguy]

The Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo provides pretty much all the information needed to know that spilling dilbit into a river is very, very bad news. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalamazoo_River_oil_spill

"In 2013, in opining on the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, the EPA recommended to the State Department that pipelines that carry tar sands oil should no longer be treated just like pipelines that carry any other oil."

[Donald G]

Does anyone out there know if there is any foliage that grows well on Dilbit Soil ?? Or microbes that eat or live on dilbit ??

[hobbyguy]

http://www.livescience.com/1515-asphalt-munching-bacteria-discovered.html

I gather these are very rare.

Most of the microbes that will "munch" oil are only after the light components, which makes the bitumen (ashphaltic) problematic. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-microbes-helped-clean-bp-s-oil-spill/

[hobbyguy]

Worth a look at this article, especially the writer's assessment of pipeline regulation in Saskatchewan. http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/08/02/news/saskatchewan-government-unlikely-clean-all-husky-oil-spill