If Stewart Rood (University of Lethbridge) has anything to do with it, there may be a silver lining in the cloud of the recent Red Deer River oil spill.
According to the Calgary Herald, Steward spent last week in an inflatable zodiac boat on the Red Deer River with a team of U of L environmental science researchers looking for signs of oil. Rood says “his team’s research will try to determine effect of oil spills and turn it into a set of quidelines for developing oil pipelines around waterways”. He notes that “river crossings are especially prone to pipeline breaks”.
We’re reminded of the pipeline break that occurred in early July last year on the Yellowstone River. River scouring was suspected of causing that rupture as well.
Premier Redford is on record as saying that “she’s not opposed to a broader review of pipeline integrity.”
We hope all of this can happen before we experience something similar in the Bow River watershed.
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| Alberta environment minister Diana Mcqueen (left) and Premier Alison Redford visit the site of the oil spill at Gleniffer Lake on June 8. Redford says she's not opposed to a broader review of pipeline integrity once the investigation into recent leaks is complete. Photo, Dean Bicknell, Postmedia News |
Teams work to clean up Red Deer River oil spill
By Colette Derworiz and Stephen Ewart,
Calgary Herald
June 25, 2012
Stewart Rood has spent much of the past week in an inflatable zodiac boat with a team of University of Lethbridge environmental science researchers scouring the Red Deer River and its swollen tributaries looking for signs of oil.
In the days since a pipeline rupture spilled as much as 480,000 litres of sour crude oil into the important central Alberta river system, teams have been working to clean up the spill, but also to gain insight into how oil spills impact fresh water.
Rood didn’t know what to expect when he arrived at the waterway that supplies drinking water to close to 90,000 people. He had heard the June 8 spill by Plains Midstream described as everything from catastrophic to minor.
“You see very little impact from the spill,” said Rood. “It’s a fairly small spill on a fairly large river . . . you actually only rarely find small pools of oil.”
The pipeline rupture into the river system cutting through farm and vacation country northwest of Calgary near Sundre coincided with spring rains and early flows from the mountains to the west. The result left what Rood describes as a “bathtub ring” of oil deposits on shoreline plants.
“Everyone is hopeful the Red Deer River will recover to the point that we will not see any consequence of the spill,” Rood said, noting his team’s research will try to determine effects of oil spills and turn it into a set of guidelines for developing oil pipelines around waterways.
“River crossings are especially prone to pipeline breaks,” he said.
In the aftermath of three pipeline spills in Alberta, environmentalists are calling for a major review of pipeline safety in the province. The Alberta-based environmental group The Pembina Institute contends it’s enough to call the first major review of the integrity of Alberta’s extensive pipeline network in seven years.
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