A National Energy Board report reveals that Trans Mountain Pipeline operators ignored warning alarms for three-and-a-half hours before responding to a gasket failure that resulted in a crude oil spill last January at its Sumas tank farm near Abbotsford.
It took six hours after the first warning sounded for Trans Mountain’s Sumas operator to arrive on the scene, where a spill was discovered. The crude oil did not escape from a containment area but noxious fumes were released into the atmosphere, affecting nearby residents…
Trans Mountain Pipeline operators ignored alarms warning of Abbotsford oil spill: report (Vancouver Sun) →
Mayflower, Arkansas
“Jason Thompson used to love fishing in the lake he can see from his window in Mayflower, Arkansas…
“Thompson hasn’t been fishing much. Ever since Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline burst in March and spilled an estimated 210,000 gallons of Canadian heavy crude oil two miles from his house, he’s had headaches of preternatural intensity, so bad they wake him up in the middle of the night. He has nosebleeds, and hemorrhoids even though he’s only 36; there’s a rash on his neck that has only gotten worse in the eight months since the spill; and some days he feels so weak that he can hardly get out of bed…
“Hundreds of people in this working-class town of 2,200 have complained of symptoms like Thompson’s. And their maladies—respiratory disorders, nausea, fatigue, nosebleeds, bowel issues, throbbing headaches—echo the ones that appeared in Marshall, Michigan, where an Enbridge Energy pipeline burst in 2010. The two pipelines were carrying the same kind of oil: a heavy crude, or bitumen, mined in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, which is thicker and rawer than the oil extracted in the United States…
This Is What Happens When a Pipeline Bursts in Your Town →
Burnaby, BC
“That was a scene I will never forget,” Chu says. “It was crude oil, and it was very heavy and black. It was as black as you could imagine, shooting up into the sky, at least 30 feet high spraying onto the roads and property, the landscaping and the trees all in a close vicinity. The whole road was just covered in black oil, and so were some of the fences and yards.
“That was a scene that is hard to forget. You only see that in movies….
The day oil rained down on Burnaby →