As Enbridge continues to try to get approval for the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project, the National Energy Board will be scrutinizing the company’s practices in a series of safety audits.
Board chairman Gaetan Caron said in a public letter on the board’s website that the board recognizes the safety of oil pipelines are “of growing concern to Canadians.”
“In the specific case of Enbridge, in recent years the NEB has conducted approximately 25 compliance verification activities per year, focusing on every aspect of their management system,” Caron said in the letter.
“In the next weeks and months, we will be conducting safety audits to review and confirm that improvements, particularly to their control room practices in Edmonton, are satisfactory.”
Caron said the board is carefully reviewing a damning report on the Calgary-based company's conduct before and after a massive spill from one of its pipelines into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010 “to see what we can learn in the interests of public safety and environmental protection.”
“However even prior to the release of the final report, we have been reviewing Enbridge’s management practices,” he added.
Enbridge was in the news again in late July after another spill in the U.S. An estimated 1,200 barrels of oil from a line near Grand Marsh, Wisconsin spilled into a field.
