WhenEnergy the pipeline East: spills...
Previous ruptures along TransCanada’s Mainline – part of the planned Energy East pipeline project. Photos by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Cover photos
Pipeline Investigation Report P09H0074 Top left: Aerial Photo of the Englehart Occurrence Site, from , Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Available at http://www.tsb. gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/pipeline/2009/p09h0074/p09h0074.aspPipeline Investigation Report P11H0011 Top right: Downstream line-break section of Line 100-2, from , Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Available at http://www.tsb. gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/pipeline/2011/p11h0011/p11h0011.aspPipeline Investigation Report P09H0083 Bottom: Aerial photo of the Marten River occurrence site, from , Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Available at http://www.tsb. gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/pipeline/2009/p09h0083/p09h0083.aspEnergy East: When the pipeline spills...
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TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline project would convertIt would an up be to the40-year-old largest oil natural pipeline gas inpipeline North to America, carry crude oil from Saskatchewan to Ontario, connecting it with new pipeline through Quebec and on to Saint John, New Brunswick. transporting 1.1 million barrelsif of oil every day. when where how much When it comes to pipelines, it is not a matter of a pipeline spills, it is a matter of , and it spills.
Regina ON QC PE Winnipeg Thunder Bay Quebec City NB
Montreal NS North Bay Saint John
Ottawa Selective memory: TransCanada’s safety record.
TransCanada repeatedly claims that state of the art technology and highly trained staff will keep Energy East from leaking and that any leaks that do happen will be shut down “immediately.” They don’t like to talk about » the nine catastrophic pipeline failures on their Canadian gas lines since 1991. It is one of these » Cracking, equipment or component pipelines, up to 40 years old, that TransCanada failure, and material, manufacturing or intends to convert to pump tar sands oil through. construction causes have been the most Using this old pipeline instead of building a new common reasons for pipeline2 spills of one saves TransCanada several billion dollars » more than 1,500 litres. and puts communities at even greater risk. » Safety-related incidents – from fires to But here are some other facts and figures you spills – rose from one for every 1,000 should» know about pipelines in Canada: km of pipeline3 to two per 1,000 km of pipeline. Energy East would be 4,400 » Pipeline incidents (ruptures, spills, kms long and could have nine incidents explosions, 1leaks) have doubled in the every year based on this average. last decade.
Energy East: When the pipeline spills... 1 What would a spill from Energy East TransCanada plans to convert a pipeline look like? system with an explosive history
According to information provided at On January 25, 2014, a TransCanada-owned TransCanada’s Energy East open houses, natural gas pipeline ruptured in Otterburne, TransCanada is aiming. to be able to shut Manitoba, sending balls of flame 300 metres in down their pumping within 10 minutes of the the air. The rupture created a crater 10 feet deep, discovery of a leak Bearing in mind the total and left 4,000 natural gas customers in the cold capacity of 1.1 million barrelsmore thanof crude one permillion day, for several days. The4 cause of the rupture is still litresEnergy could East spillwould in 10transport minutes 2,024 litres of oil under investigation. In February, TransCanada per second. This means made headlines again when one of its natural . A huge amount gas pipelines ruptured5 near Rocky Mountain of oil remaining in the pipeline between valves House, Alberta. could also leak. For example, at the Nipigon River The explosion near Otterburne happened in a morecrossing than of the 10 current million natural litres gas pipeline there is 11.8 km between valve stations. This means pipeline that is part of TransCanada’s Mainline of additional oil System. This is the same system6 from which could leak after the pumping has stopped. TransCanada is seeking to convert a pipeline to NLcarry crude oil for Energy East. AB SK MB
ON QC PE Rapid City Beardmore NBExamples of Mainline System Englehart PipelineNS Explosions
Source: TransCanada Canadian Mainline Sales andBEARDMORE, Marketing, 2011 ONTARIO RAPID CITY, MANITOBA In February 2011, the 100-2 pipeline Line 100-4, slated for conversion to ruptured. It took six hours to completely carry crude for Energy East, ruptured on stop the gas from flowing to the damaged July 29, 1995 near Rapid City, Manitoba. pipe. In this case, stress corrosion cracking The rupture, which lasted two hours, reduced the load-bearing capacity of the was caused8 by external stress corrosion pipeline, leading to the rupture, explosion cracking. The delayed shutdown of the and fire. TransCanada was notified of the pipeline led to a second fire on a nearby explosion when a member of the public pipeline. The rupture was discovered by called TransCanada’s gas control operator. an on-duty TransCanada staff member who made two failed attempts to contact ENGLEHART, ONTARIO the Regional Operations Controller from In 2009, the 100-2 pipeline ruptured their station. After another failed attempt and then exploded, burning close to from an emergency phone located outside 25 hectares of forest and grassland. The the station, the staff member finally rupture was discovered by the Englehart reached the controller using a cell phone Fire Department and was caused by borrowed from a bystander. external stress corrosion cracking.
Energy East: When the pipeline spills... 2 The Otterburne and Rocky Mountain House The pipeline supplies natural gas to large tar ruptures are in addition to the eight incidents sands producers11 that were forced to slow down that occurred on the Mainline System between operations. TransCanada’s first Keystone 1991 and 2013. These incidents were found pipeline also spilled 12 times in its first year of to be largely7 the result of stress corrosion operation. One12 spill dumped 75,000 litres of tar cracking, external corrosion, and coating and sands crude. welding failures, suggesting the pipeline was poorly designed, poorly built and has been TransCanada has bullied landowners poorly maintained. and cut corners on Keystone
Converting a pipeline to carry a substance that it wasn’t originally built to carry heightens the Just recently, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous risk of a pipeline rupture. Materials Safety Administration added two safety conditions for the Keystone XL pipeline. “APipelines study prepared operating by outside the National of their Petroleum design These requirements were added because of parameters,Council for the such U.S. as Department those carrying of Energy commodities states: defects with the (already13 built) southern leg of for which they were not initially designed, or high the Keystone system. flow pipelines, are at the greatest risk of integrity issues in the future due to the nature of their Bold Nebraska, a group that works with operation landowners, has collected accounts of easily 9 identified problems, including trenches that .” are too shallow, pipeline placed over rocks and faulty welds that don’t seal, on the southern Similarly, RichardChanging Kuprewicz crude slates, of especially Accufacts Keystone system. According to Jane Kleeb, the runningInc. warns dilbit, in can his significantly report on increase Enbridge’s pressure Line director of Bold Nebraska, “several landowners cycles9b reversal: that can “ accelerate crack growth. The I’ve spoken to live in fear that a major spill could various and changing compositions of dilbit, both happen any day.” the bitumen and/or the diluent, can significantly impact pressure cycles on a pipeline where crack A number of reports have also documented risk is a bona fide threat. Accufacts believes TransCanada’s practice of strong-arming that the movement of dilbit in pipelines at risk landowners, including using the threat of to cracking presents a higher potential to cause “eminent domain” and expensive lawsuits to14 pipeline ruptures if not adequately managed strike deals for land along Keystone XL’s route. 10 .”
The new pipeline from Cornwall, Ontario through Quebec to Saint John, New Brunswick and the new pipeline segment from Hardisty, Alberta to the existing pipe in Saskatchewan also raises spill concerns. A TransCanada- owned three-year-old pipeline ruptured in October 2013, close to Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Residents of Houston, TX protest the use of “eminent domain” to seize lands for the Keystone XL pipeline. Photo by Elizabeth Borrasa, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Energy East: When the pipeline spills... 3 The problems with leak detection systems system incidents reveals that only one of the eight ruptures18 was discovered by a leak detection system. In the case of the Brookdale, Manitoba Days before the now infamous Enbridge pipeline rupture, a detection system did trigger a signal, spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan of more than 3.8 but failed to register the extent of the rupture million litres of eightdiluted minutes bitumen, the pipeline’s17 hours for more than 10 minutes, by which time operator publicly stated it would remotely members19 of the public were already raising the detect a spill in . It was alarm. The other ruptures were discovered before Enbridge confirmed the massive spill by staff, nearby residents and an OPP officer. that has now cost $1 billion to clean up. It took anywhere between 10 minutes to 2.5 hours from the time of the rupture to when the In fact, the general public is far more likely to gas supply was shut off. In Beardmore, Ontario, discover a pipeline rupture than a company’s gas continued to pass into the isolated20 segment leak detection system. Looking at 10 years of pipeline for a total of six hours. of federal data in the U.S., an investigative journalist found that remote15 sensors detected But Canadian regulations protect us, only five per cent of spills. Looking just at right? large spills of over. In 1,000 the vast barrels, majority only of 20 cases, per thecent companies of the spills were were unaware first discovered that their pipelines by leak detection systems were spewing oil until the public alerted them. In 2012, the Harper government passed an omnibus budget bill that gutted Canada’s long- standing environmental laws by eliminating In Canada, we are dealing with many of the same key protection measures and making it far more big pipeline companies, including TransCanada, difficult for people to have their say on large Enbridge and Exxon. The companies are telling energy projects. Canadians that their leak detection systems work and will protect people from spills. The bill means that massive projects like Energy East no longer require a federal environmental Much of the Energy East pipeline is in sparsely assessment or independent information about populated areas, so a spill may not be detected the project’s risks or alternatives. until people far downstream notice it. Even then, it will be difficult for TransCanada emergency Instead, the approval of all major energy crews to get to the site of the leak to plug it. projects falls to the federal cabinet with More than 13 million litres of crude can be in recommendations from the National Energy Board (NEB). While the NEB’s mandate is to act the pipeline between shutoff valves, which16 can leak even after the pumping is stopped. in the public interest when it comes to energy infrastructure, time and again the NEB has According to pipeline expert Richard Kuprewicz, fallen short. who has worked with TransCanada in the past, “[operators can feel pressured to] tell people A December 2011 report by the Commissionerdid things they shouldn’t tell them because it’s not noton Environmentadequately follow and Sustainable up on instances Development of non- true....[while the companies] may not be saying compliancefound Transport when pipeline Canada companies and the NEBwere “told that with the intent of lying, the reality is, it’s17 by those agencies to improve the safety of their just real difficult to detect [releases] remotely.” pipelines 21 Our review of Transportation and Safety Board .” reports on TransCanada’s Mainline pipeline
Energy East: When the pipeline spills... 4 The NEB has a history of approving almost There are currently a number of legal challenges24 all major energy projects. The NEB’s board is underway related to the NEB process for dominated by ex-industry executives. Public reviewing pipelines, including five judicial participation in an NEB review is now extremely reviews of the Northern Gateway joint review prohibitive – submitting a letter requires filling panel, and the limitations25 of the Kinder Morgan out a nine-page form. pipeline review.
Prior to the NEB’s approval of Enbridge’s Line The Council of Canadians has filed an appeal 9b reversal, CTV’s W5 found that the NEB only in Federal Court of the limited list of issues knew of seven spills along this pipeline,22 while the NEB has decided it will examine for the Enbridge claimed there were 13 spills. In fact, Energy East pipeline project. The concerns are W5 found the pipeline had spilled five times as twofold: (1) the list was issued prematurely, often as the NEB disclosed – a total of 35 spills. before TransCanada even filed its full project description, and (2) while the review will allow The NEB also failed to publicly release a damning evidence about the commercial, economic, report on a 2009 explosion in a TransCanada supply and market impacts of the project, such pipeline that sent 50-metre-high flames into the as tax revenues, royalties and job creation, it air destroying a two-hectare23 wooded area on excludes any consideration of the upstream Dene Tha’ First Nation land. This report, not and downstream activities associated with posted publicly due to an “administrative error,” the development of “oil sands,” the end use of criticized TransCanada subsidiary NOVA Gas the oil to be26 transported, or climate change Transmission for “inadequate” field inspections, implications.For more information about the Council of “ineffective” management, and the failure of in- Canadians’ campaign to stop the Energy East line inspection systems to detect the “corrosion pipeline visit www.noenergyeast.ca. within corrosion.”
Aerial photo of the occurrence site Pipeline with town of Beardmore, Ontario Investigation Report P11H0011 in the background, from , Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Available at http://www. tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/ pipeline/2011/p11h0011/ p11h0011.asp
Energy East: When the pipeline spills... 5 Endnotes
1 Amber Hildebrandt. “Pipeline safety incident Pegasus.” InsideClimate News. 3 Apr. 2013
Energy East: When the pipeline spills... 6 drop in pressure, which triggered an alarm in the Calgary Gas Control on line 100-1. Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Pipeline Investigation Report P09H0083. 26 Sep. 2009
19 The SCADA system gave a signal indicating strong evidence of a line break at the same time a bystander reported the fire. Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Pipeline Investigation Report P02H0017. 14 Apr. 2002.
20 Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Pipeline Investigation Report P11H0011. 19 Feb. 2011.
21 Nathan Lemphers. “Pipeline spills and safety violations justify an independent review.“ Pembina Institute. 10 Jul. 2012.
22 Annie Burns-Pieper. “Line 9 has had significantly more spills than previously stated, W5 reports.” 21 Feb. 2014. CTV W5.
23 Amber Hildebrandt. “Pipeline rupture report raises questions about TransCanada inspections.” CBC News. 4 Feb. 2014.
24 “ForestEthics Advocacy files lawsuit against federal government and National Energy Board.” 12 Aug. 2013. ForestEthics.
25 James Keller. “B.C. First Nation launches legal challenge over Kinder Morgan pipeline.” The Canadian Press. 2 May 2014.
26 “Council of Canadians seeks to appeal Energy East ruling.” The Council of Canadians. 15 May 2014.
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June 2014