Pipeline safety looms large

Although the Enbridge pipeline spill in Michigan made barely a ripple outside the region when it happened in 2010, the conclusions from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the incident will be heard as far as the Canadian Prairies.

The world was focused on the much larger oil gusher from a BP oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico when an Enbridge pipeline ruptured into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River two years ago, spilling nearly 3.8 million litres of oil that will cost an estimated $800 million US to clean up.

But according to the NTSB investigation, Enbridge officials shouldn’t have been caught off guard by the spill. The company knew for five years that the pipeline was plagued by corrosion and cracks, but it still took some 17 hours for its officials to react to the spill.

In a statement that sounded more political than analytical, board chair Debbie Hersman likened Enbridge’s reaction to the antics of the Keystone Kops of silent movies. Although bumbling seems an apropos description for the nonchalance of Enbridge employees toward the spill — with one saying something was happening but he would be off for a few days so it wasn’t important — the Keystone reference couldn’t help but remind Americans of another high profile, Canadian pipeline project.

Ms. Hersman also observed that Enbridge exploited weaknesses in the U.S. regulatory regime. This is of concern because the company wants to build a pipeline across the delicate environments in northern Alberta and British Columbia to transport oilsands bitumen to a thirsty Asian market.

Enbridge’s success in negotiating this route will prove important to Saskatchewan if this province is to ever exploit its own oilsands resource. But even in Western Canada there are few people who would cheer the exploitation of the resources if they know the environment is of so little consequence, as the Kalamazoo spill appeared to be for Enbridge.

Ms. Hersman pointed out that an important factor leading up to the spill was the ineffectiveness of the U.S. federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

As the Globe and Mail noted Tuesday, “Pipeline companies have the most to lose as regulators deliver scathing reports.” And because all companies come under scrutiny when one pipeline fails, what these pipelines and the companies that use them to transport products require is an effective regulatory system.

Canada, however, is heading in the opposite direction. The changes to the regulatory regime included in the federal government’s recently rammed through omnibus budget bill weakens the system and shortens the time set aside for public assessment of such projects.

Combined with cuts Ottawa has made to that part of the public service charged with scientific and professional evaluation, the pipeline companies are increasingly exposed to a public backlash. As Ms. Hersman released her report, hundreds of Canadian scientists were demonstrating on Parliament Hill over these cuts.

Pipeline and oil executives and anyone who wants to develop Saskatchewan’s oil resources for the Asian market should have joined those protesters. The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper’s editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.