Oil spills happening at a rate of about 2 per day in Saskatchewan: researcher
A researcher says spills are happening at a rate of about two per day in Saskatchewan's oil industry.
University of Regina researcher Emily Eaton runs an independent website that tracks oil impact. Eaton said that there have been 8,000 spills in Saskatchewan since 2006 (about 17 per cent involved Husky Energy).
Eaton notes that the spills relate to oil, salt water, natural gas and other fluids used by the oil industry.
A lot of these spills are smaller than this current one, the Husky one … they often spill into farmer's fields in rural oil producing areas
Many spills like this are happening everyday across the province without any awareness from the public.
While Emily Eaton questions whether a spill can ever effectively be cleaned up, in the case of many of the spills in this province, industry fails to even go through the motions. Eaton said she has spoken to a number of landowners about their experience with spills.
"A lot of them are very frustrated; some of them have been waiting for remediation and cleanup for decades sometimes."
The mixture is acutely toxic. Rapid cleanup key to recovery.
It's critical that it be removed from the surface as quickly as possible because it will tend to sink.
Western Canada Oil Spill Drenches Birds, Will Taint Drinking Water for Months to Come
Despite a devastating pipeline leak that flooded the North Saskatchewan River with 200,000 liters of tar sands crude last Thursday, Husky Energy waited until Monday to shut down the leaking pipeline. An executive with the oil behemoth said the company was "deeply sorry" for the incident while announcing the pipeline closure.
A consultant for Husky Energy says the cleanup plan for a spill of oil into the North Saskatchewan River includes allowing nature to break down the material.
"Nature takes care of a lot of it," Ed Owens, an expert on oil spills. "Some of it will just degrade and weather naturally as a result of microbial bacterial action breaking down the oil."
meaning, doing nothing about the spill is great idea!!
For more information on oil impacts in Saskatchewan
http://www.saskoil.org/
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