A broken pipeline in Alberta has leaked the equivalent of two Olympic-sized swimming pools of bitumen, water and sand into the Alberta wilderness.
The 5-million-litre spill occurred in a remote area near Nexen’s Long Lake operations. It happened about 15 kilometres from the community of Anzac, and has affected about 16,000 square metres along the pipeline route.
This is Alberta’s fourth large spill in recent years. A 2.7-million-litre spill occurred northeast of Peace River in March, three million litres escaped near Rainbow Lake in 2012 and 4.5 million litres leaked in 2011 near Little Buffalo.
A road had to be built and special mats were laid over the ground Friday so that a clean-up crew could reach the site and start vacuuming up the mess.
Ron Bailey, senior vice-president of Canadian operations for Nexen, apologized.
He said the problem was discovered Wednesday afternoon by a contractor after the pipeline’s fail-safe systems failed to alert technicians.
He said the hole in the double-walled pipeline, built in 2014, may be very small.
The pipeline connects a well to an upgrader and has a capacity of 20,000 barrels a day.
Bailey said that a lake located about 100 metres away from the spill was protected from the spill by a previously constructed berm.
Bailey said the impact on wildlife will be investigated and that there was “no human impact here, immediately.”
Melina Laboucan-Massimo, an Aboriginal Greepeace campaigner from Lubicon Lake Nation, called it “alarming.”
“It makes communities fearful of what it would look like when a new pipeline is built,” she said.
The spill occurred just as Canada's premiers agreed to seriously consider environmental concerns before proceeding to build new pipelines.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley called the spill "troubling."
