EnCana's 'pro-environmental' 'pro-community' practices win
more friends as someone blows up their Canadian pipeline - for the third
time...Now, sometimes giant
corporations become targets of crazy stuff (hot-coffee lawsuits and the
like) because they are just that - giant... and some nut wants to leverage
their nutness by going after a biggie. I don't know what fuels this type of
thing - attention I guess.
But other times, people get pushed so far against a
wall that they have nothing left to loose, and take perceived injustices
into their own hands. The kinds of things that fuel that kind of behavior
have everything to do with notions of protecting one's home, health and
family. When these kinds of values and belongings become seriously
threatened, people - normal people - get desperate.
I don't know what the circumstances are nor the
attendant motives that surround the bombings of EnCana's pipeline in
the Tomslake area, but EnCana's pursuit of sour gas (hydrogen sulfide
containing natural gas) in the area probably has something to do with it.
Hydrogen Sulfide [H2S] - even trace amounts in the air - can kill a person.
Apparently, when a person is exposed to sour gas,
the first thing that happens is the person will smell rotten egg odors.
Second, the person's sense of smell diminishes, following that, the body
becomes paralyzed. Death follows soon after. All within minutes depending on
the concentration of sour gas.
A couple of articles on the incident follow:
Gas pipeline blasts 'evolving': expert
More than one person likely responsible, security consultant says Jamie
Hall, The Edmonton Journal
11-02-08
The article follows:
They are technology novices, but
they're passionate and they're getting smarter about where to place their
bombs.
That's the theory being put forward by
a pipeline security consultant after a third explosion in less than a month
targeted EnCana's natural gas operations in Tomslake near the
Alberta-British Columbia border.
"This one caused a breach, so these
guys are definitely getting better at their bomb placement," said Oliver
Salvador, who has experience protecting pipelines overseas. "They're getting
smarter, and they're evolving as they go." Salvador is the executive
director of CQB Group Inc., which, among other things, provides security and
risk assessment for the oil and gas industry."
the article continues....
"This latest explosion occurred at a
wellhead, where the natural gas comes out of the ground. The previous two
were located at spots where the pipeline, which runs mostly underground,
comes above the surface at an intersection known as a "riser." EnCana
spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said the targeted wellhead was "low volume" and
has been producing since the late 1990s. She characterized the gas leak as
"tiny," and the damage to the wellhead as a "dent."
As of Saturday afternoon, company
engineers were still at the site working to stop the leak, which DelFrari
said could take as little as a few hours or as long as a couple of days.
In the meantime, the leak poses no
danger to the public, she said.
Salvador believes a group, rather than
a single individual, is responsible for the bombings.
Team effort "That would be a lot of
work for one person; he'd have to do all the intel himself, all the
reconnaissance, the bomb-making, the bomb placement," said Salvador.
"It's always easier to accomplish
multiple bombings in a team." He said whoever is responsible clearly knows
the region and isn't intimidated by the presence of added security in the
area.
And...
Added Salvador: "Whoever they are,
they've got a lot of drive and a lot of guts. They're probably very
emotionally involved." He said it's
possible the attackers believe they are putting on a "good show" in an
effort to pressure EnCana, but genuinely do not want to cause human
casualties or environmental damage.
And...
The first two bomb sites were found in
October after an unsigned, handwritten letter was sent to the Dawson Creek
Daily News warning EnCana to close operations and leave the Tomslake area by
noon on Oct. 11.
"We will not negotiate with
terrorists, which you are as you keep on endangering our families with crazy
expansion of deadly gas wells in our homelands," the letter stated.
The first blast site was found Oct.
12.
On Oct. 16, a second bomb was
detonated under a pipeline, leaving a crater that caused a minor leak that
was quickly contained.
Perpetrator of B.C. blast likely from area, police say
The Canadian Press
11-01-08
DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — Investigators
from the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team renewed their call
for the public's help Saturday as they continued to probe a third deliberate
explosion targeting natural gas pipelines in northeastern B.C.
Crews from oil and gas giant EnCana,
whose pipelines have been the target of all three blasts, were still at the
scene near Dawson Creek at midday, trying to stop the flow of gas.
The article goes on...
EnCana spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said
the leak is small and there is no dangerous hydrogen sulphide leaking from
the damaged area.
The first blast on Oct. 11 was beside
a sour gas line located about 50 kilometres east of Dawson Creek. The second
occurred Oct. 16 along a pipeline off Highway 2, about half a kilometre from
the Alberta boundary.
Police were called to the scene more
than 12 hours after the blast when workers heard the sound of leaking gas
from a wellhead northwest of the small community of Tomslake.
And...
“For investigators and from a public
safety standpoint it's important for police to receive the information as
soon as possible to contain the scene and potentially catch whomever is
responsible for these acts.”
Ms. DelFrari said the company is
required to have emergency plans in place for its wellsites.
“The plans tell us exactly when we
have to alert the public if they could possibly be at risk,” she said.
“In none of these cases was there ever
any indication that the public was at risk, or that we actually needed to
alert people but we did it out of courtesy to some of the nearby residents.”
The natural gas from the wells
contains a fractional trace of toxic hydrogen sulphide — 0.0005 to .0010 per
cent, the company said — but not enough to pose a health hazard.
Many critics of sour gas development
fear the gas, which can be fatal if enough of it is inhaled, poses a danger
to people nearby.
The case has kindled memories of the
vandalism that plagued Alberta's oilpatch in the 1990s.
There were more than 150 incidents at
oil and natural gas facilities in northwestern Alberta between 1996 and
1998, ranging from shootings to nails found strewn along lease roads.
Alberta farmer Wiebo Ludwig, who
blamed the energy industry and sour gas emissions for harming his land,
livestock and family, was convicted of several charges related to oil patch
bombing and vandalism and spent nearly two years in prison.
Northeastern British Columbia has
become a hotbed for the oil and gas industry in recent months.
Several energy players have been
flocking to the area in a bid to exploit the billions of cubic feet of
natural gas trapped in the region's rock and sand.
Third blast rocks B.C. pipeline
Globe and Mail Update
10-31-08
VANCOUVER — A third attack has been
discovered on a pipeline in the Dawson Creek area of northeastern British
Columbia.
The target was a natural gas wellhead
about 12 kilometres northwest of Tomslake, a small town near Dawson Creek.
A small amount of gas leaked, but the
public is not in danger, the RCMP said in a statement. EnCana engineers were
containing the leak, and the blast was in a rural, isolated area.
The blast site was discovered about
12:30 p.m. PT Friday.
RCMP explosive experts investigate a
bomb explosion at an EnCana sour gas pipeline near Dawson Creek, B.C., Oct.
17, 2008. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)
EnCana spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said
there was “very minimal damage.”
“There are residents in the area but
no one even living close enough that they would fall into our emergency
response plan,” she said.
The article goes on...
Calgary-based EnCana is a major player
in the region. The company's Steeprock plant, a $60-million processing
facility opened in 2006, was the biggest such plant to be built in B.C. in a
decade.
EnCana has been operating in the area
for about 14 years. The company says its sour gas pipelines are equipped
with automatic emergency shutdown valves that would “shut in,” or contain,
an affected part of a pipeline if a change in pressure – from, for example,
a rupture resulting from an explosion – were detected.
And...
The RCMP's anti-terrorist unit, the
Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, has taken the lead in the
investigation because the attacks were directed at Canada's critical
infrastructure, the force says.
And....
The Peace River area has been the
focus of intense oil and gas activity for the past several years, with BP
Canada planning to drill 132 new wells near Kelly Lake and the building of
EnCana's $60-million Steep Rock gas plant in 2006. Along with all this
activity have come growing concerns voiced by area residents.
Landowners near the hamlet of Tomslake,
28 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, protested on a gas industry access road
this summer and the Kelly Lake Cree Nation blockaded a road for two days to
underline their safety concerns.
The story of Wiebo Ludwig and his
struggles against EnCana have been chronicled by award-winning journalist,
Andrew Nikiforuk in the book: Saboteurs.
Andrew's new book is entitled:
Tar Sands - Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
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