Enbridge pledges ‘ investigative digs’ over massive oil spill

OTTAWA — Enbridge Inc., the proponent of the Northern Gateway pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to the B. C. northern coast, is planning seven “investigative digs” as part of a new round of measures next month in connection with a 1,500- barrel spill in the Northwest Territories.

Enbridge originally said when the spill was discovered by a hunter last May that only four barrels of sweet crude leaked from the pipeline, which takes as much as 39,400 barrels a day 869 kilometres from Norman Wells to Zama, Alta. But in early June the company notified the National Energy Board that the spill, 150 metres south of the Willowlake River in western N. W. T., involved anywhere from 700 to 1,500 barrels.

Enbridge’s website now pegs the spill, from a “pinhole” leak on the pipeline, at the upper limit of 1,500 barrels. The company, in its first news release on the spill, announced on Wednesday that it is doing the seven investigative digs in the area to assess the risk of other leaks. An eighth dig will remove and replace the section of pipe where the original leak occurred.