Alberta’s energy minister says she continues to believe that pipelines are the safest way to transport oil, but says spills like the Nexen leak south of Fort McMurray, Alta., are unacceptable.
On Friday, Energy Minister Marg McCuaig−Boyd and Environment Minister Shannon Phillips toured the site where five million litres of bitumen, sand and produced water was discovered near Nexen Energy’s Long Lake oilsands facility.
The pipeline was installed last year and a warning system didn’t detect the leak.
"Every effort must be made to make sure it doesn’t happen again," McCuaig−Boyd told a news conference after the tour.
She said she was impressed by how quickly clean−up crews were able to get to the site and start fixing the problem.
"There’s about 130 people working on this spill," said McCuaig−Boyd. "I was impressed with just the logistics of how you go from the event just last week to that many people working in co−ordination with the company, (the Alberta Energy Regulator) and all the people doing the remediation."
Byron Bates, a councillor with Fort McMurray No. 468 First Nation, said the band hopes communication on what is being done will improve.
"I visited the spill site last Friday and it’s much different today," he said. "It’s very active, Nexen’s working with us and it’s very encouraging to see the government ministers here today so we’re very encouraged by that. We’ll look forward to a full incident report and sharing of the information."
Tany Yao, the Wildrose member of the legislature for Fort McMurray−Wood Buffalo, said he would have liked to have seen a quicker response from the government.
"I’m happy that these ministers did come up to Fort McMurray — better late than never," said Yao. "I’m glad to see that the comments they’ve been saying are not negative to our industry. I think they’re starting to recognize the importance of the oilsands."
Nexen Energy has said it has only been able to narrow down the start of the leak to a two−week window.
Ron Bailey, the company’s senior vice−president of Canadian operations, said it would have been between June 29 and July 15, which is when a contractor discovered it.
Greenpeace expressed concern over that, saying it was shocking to learn the pipeline may have been leaking for two weeks before it was discovered, and then only by accident.
A dead duck was found at the site last weekend but the company said it believes the animal died before it put fences, wildlife cannons and other deterrents in place in an effort to limit further environmental harm.
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