Provincial auditor general Merwan Saher has agreed to conduct an audit of oil pipeline safety in Alberta, responding to requests from a coalition of 54 public interest groups dissatisfied with the provincial government's third-party report released in August.

"We will be auditing the government's monitoring systems to ensure compliance with Alberta's pipeline regulations. Our audit would include inspection and enforcement processes," Saher wrote in a letter to Alberta's Opposition parties Wildrose and the NDP, which were among the groups demanding the review.

The government-commissioned pipeline safety review, conducted by Group 10 Engineering, was announced by Energy Minister Ken Hughes in July 2012 after several major pipeline oil spills in the province, including a 475,000 litre leak from a Plains Midstream Canada pipeline in Central Alberta in June. The final report was made public a year later, in August 2013.

Following the release of the report last month, a coalition representing 54 environmental, First Nations, labour and landowner groups wrote to Premier Alison Redford requesting another review. The letter stated that "Albertans deserve to know the real scope of the province's pipeline problems and they deserve real solutions," leaving the group "no choice but to begin to petition the Alberta auditor general to take on such an examination."  

Eriel Deranger, Communications Coordinator for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said “Oil spills pose a major threat to our community, which depends on clean air, water and soil to sustain our way of life. We are pleased that the Auditor General will be looking into pipeline safety, as we feel the provincial government hasn’t been doing enough to prevent spills from happening.”

“It’s been a long road pushing for this review but hopefully the Auditor General will finally give Albertan’s some answers to Alberta’s pipeline woes because the Redford government definitely hasn’t,” said Mike Hudema, Greenpeace Canada’s climate and energy campaigner. “Groups from across the political spectrum joined together to push for this review because of the growing threats pipeline spills are posing to Alberta’s communities and environment. I hope this review will give the government time to pause on its pipeline-pushing ways because all is not well in Alberta.”

Jennifer Grant, director of the oilsands program at the Pembina Institute, applauded Saher for "showing leadership on this important issue," saying that the "audit presents an opportunity to restore Albertans' confidence in the provincial regulator's ability to manage pipelines and the associated risks."

"With 400,000 square kilometres of pipelines crisscrossing the province, and an average of two crude oil spills a day for the past 37 years, ensuring the integrity and safety of Alberta's pipeline network is absolutely critical and could set an important precedent for other jurisdictions," Grant said in a news release.

Global News reports that the auditor general "has been considering a pipeline safety audit for much of the past year" according to spokeswoman Kim Nishikaze. Nishikaze added that they "will be looking at pipeline safety in the foreseeable future" but "can't say when."

Saher wrote in his letter that the pipeline safety audit would be undertaken "as soon as reasonably possible."

Image Credit: Jasonwoodhead23 / Flickr

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Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board has released its findings following the investigation of the Rainbow pipeline spill in April 2011, and the results highlight longstanding issues both with Alberta oil companies and the bodies that monitor them.

In a story reminiscent of the Enbridge 6B pipeline rupture that dumped 20,000 barrels of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010, the report outlines the sequence of events from the initial alarm to the final shutdown.

Abnormal operating conditions were first detected at 6:32 pm on April 28, 2011. No fewer than five leak detection alarms went off between 6:35 pm and 7:22 pm that evening, and the pipeline was shut down and restarted three times before the flow of oil was finally shut off for good at 2:50 am on April 29.

The ERCB attributes this failure to heed the alarms to “a bias toward inaction,” saying Plains Midstream Canada, the pipeline’s operator, prioritized the flow of oil over following their own safety procedures and failed to appreciate the impact a spill would have on the area and its residents.

During the investigation, the board tried to interview the operator in charge at the time of the spill, but the company informed investigators that the individual is no longer employed at Plains.

The report stated that the location of the breach contributed to the size of the spill, describing it as “very challenging” due to wet muskeg and thick forest, underscoring one of the primary concerns raised throughout the Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearings: the accessibility of the of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in the event of an accident.

Prior to restarting the pipeline, Plains was required to fulfill a number of conditions including: conduct weekly aerial monitoring of the pipeline; implement a new risk assessment procedure to be incorporated into all operational and procedural documents; and demonstrate that enhanced pipeline maintenance protocol, particularly backfill practices, be fully integrated into standard procedure.

Perhaps more difficult for Plains to fulfill is the requirement to “successfully communicate to all Plains staff that the organization will fully support a console operator’s decision to shut down a pipeline.”

In addition to chastising Plains Midstream Canada, the report illuminates the lax standard to which the company and the pipeline’s previous owner, Imperial Oil, have been held.

Melina Laboucan Massimo, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace and a member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation whose traditional territory has been directly affected by the spill, criticized the Alberta government for failing to respond to numerous calls for consultation with environmental organizations and the public at large.

Greenpeace campaigner Melina Laboucan Massimo speaks with government officials at the scene of the spill in 2011. Photo: Greenpeace.ca

“The Energy Resources Conservation Board’s report is a damning indictment of pipeline safety in Alberta as yet another pipeline company has failed to protect Alberta’s environment and people and only received the lightest slap on the wrist,” she said in a statement Tuesday.

“This sends a message that pipeline companies can cut corners on safety, leaving our communities and our environment to pay the price.”

The Rainbow pipeline was originally licensed for crude oil in 1967, and Plains Midstream purchased it in 2008. The report points to an accumulation of failures spanning decades that led to the pumping of 28,000 barrels of sweet crude into the Peace River region of Northern Alberta.

The site of the rupture was one of nearly 100 segments to have been repaired over the lifetime of the pipeline, and this is not the first time repairs of this kind have failed.

As a result of the pipeline’s failure, 4.5 million litres of oil were released into the local wetlands, making this spill the worst ERCB had seen in over 30 years.

After the 2011 spill, the ERCB ordered Plains to conduct integrity digs on a total of 10 sites, and the company found cracks in the repair sleeves in all 10 cases.

The ECRB determined that Plains should have acquired all historical records of pipeline maintenance and failures upon taking over operations of the Rainbow pipeline in 2008, but even without those records, investigators said, Plains should have understood the risks involved in the aging infrastructure.

Further, had the company conducted proper inspections, it would have caught the cracks long before the spill occurred.

Inadequate training, supervision and communication also factored into the magnitude of the spill, the report noted, prompting the ERCB to require the company to complete a crisis communication audit as well as an emergency response exercise by the end of April.

No fines have been levied against Plains.

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