Paula Simons: How vulnerable is Edmonton's water supply? Husky oil spill in Saskatchewan gives some disturbing answers
Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal
Updated: July 25, 2016 10:14 PM MDT
Monday morning, the City of Prince Albert shut off its water intake from the North Saskatchewan River.
Monday afternoon, Prince Albert city council declared a local state of emergency.
Water is now being rationed, with a $1,000 fine to anyone who uses excessive amounts. Meantime, construction crews were fighting against time to complete an emergency 30 km water pipeline to the South Saskatchewan River in an effort to find an alternate source of drinking water for the city of 35,000.
Last Thursday, a Husky Energy pipeline carrying heavy oil failed about 30 km east of the Alberta border, spilling between 200,000 and 250,000 litres of oil and diluent into the North Saskatchewan. That’s about 1,572 barrels, or two rail cars’ worth.
By Sunday, Husky had recovered about 40 per cent of it. But much of the rest of it has been making its way downstream.
North Battleford was the first city to have its water system compromised. It, too, turned off its river water intake and imposed water conservation measures. But North Battleford was lucky; while it does draw some water from the North Saskatchewan, the city of 19,000 get most of its drinking water from underground wells.
While crews in Saskatchewan mobilize to contain the spill and keep water safe, Craig Bonneville is watching closely.
An oil slicks floats on the North Saskatchewan River near Maidstone, Sask., on Friday, July 22, 2016. Husky Energy has said between 200,000 and 250,000 litres of oil and other material leaked into the river on Thursday from its pipeline. JASON FRANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Bonneville is director of Epcor’s Edmonton water treatment plants. Those plants — Rossdale in the downtown, and E.L. Smith in the southwest — draw exclusively from the North Saskatchewan. On a hot summer day, Epcor might pull 450 million to 500 million litres of water from the river.
And those plants don’t just serve Edmonton. Epcor pipes its treated North Saskatchewan water to 60 different communities, from Villeneuve to Vermilion, from Leduc to Long Lake. More than a million people in the region rely on the North Saskatchewan for water. A major oil spill west of Edmonton could threaten not just our majestic local river, but the water we all drink.
“We only have that one source of water here,” says Bonneville. “If it were bad enough, it would probably be more than an inconvenience for people. We can’t put out water that is of questionable quality.”
Bonneville says Epcor hasn’t yet faced the consequences of a major oil spill.
They have had to turn off water intake temporarily a few times in the past to deal with smaller spills of oil and gasoline. And they’re protected to some extent, he says, because hydrocarbons float and Epcor’s water intakes are in the middle of the river, well below the water’s surface. Bonneville says they can also use powdered activated carbon to act as a giant carbon filter to clean the water, if the pollution isn’t too serious.
An oil-soaked Canada goose is treated at the Living Sky wildlife rehabilitation sanctuary in Saskatoon. It’s one of just a handful of birds treated after the Husky Oil spill into the North Saskatchewan River on July 21, 2016. Image courtesy of Living Sky’s Facebook page. Living Sky Wildfire Rehabiliation / Facebook
If the spill were bigger? Bonneville says we have enough supply of water in reserve to last two to four days, depending how carefully we conserve it. There is no Plan B. Because the river flows at different rates, depending on time of year, it’s hard to say if a two- to four-day supply, complemented by water rationing, would be enough of a cushion. If the water were high and flowing fast, he says, an oil plume might pass through the city quite quickly. In winter, things might be very different.
The risk is real.
“There’s all sort of (industry) infrastructure adjacent to, or across the river,” says Bonneville, “from Drayton Valley to Rocky Mountain House to further upstream.”
Bonneville says they prepare for a potential emergency by practicing everything from field drills to communications protocols, making sure that all levels of government know how to communicate vital information quickly. But Epcor doesn’t take any responsibility for keeping the river clean, or for cleaning up spills. Neither does Alberta Environment. That’s up to companies and to the Alberta Energy Regulator.
Pipelines are still, on balance, the safest way to get oil from point A to point B. But if governments and oil companies want acceptance for pipelines, they must maintain them, keep them safe, and move quickly to clean up accidents. Spills like this one remind us just how vulnerable our rivers are — and how vulnerable we are, when we rely on them for the water we drink every day.