Crude oil is flowing again through the pipeline that carries about 300,000 barrels a day from Alberta to Canada’s West Coast, following an oil spill near the city of Abbotsford in eastern British Columbia late Friday night.
The crown-owned Trans Mountain pipeline–currently ramping up a massive expansion–said in a news release Saturday that an alarm was received early Saturday morning and the pipeline was immediately shut down as crews went to investigate and that the spill had been “contained.”
On Sunday, Trans Mountain said an estimated 150,000 to 190,000 litres of sweet crude oil had spilled from its Sumas Pump station.
B.C.’s Ministry of Environment initially estimated the spil at about 1,500 litres.
The Sumas Terminal contains six storage tanks with a capacity of approximately 700,000 barrels.
The company said Sunday an investigation had found that the spill was related to a fitting on a 2.5-centimetre piece of pipe connected to the mainline.
The Sumas Terminal in Abbotsford contains six storage tanks with a capacity of approximately 700,000 barrels.
It said there was no pipeline expansion construction taking place nearby at the time of the spill.
The incident comes as activists continue to criticize Trans Mountain’s expansion, saying the pipeline is a threat to the environment.
But expansion–essentially a twinning–continues and work is underway near Kamloops, B.C.
The Union of BC Indian Chiefs said Sunday that spilled oil escaped into a field adjacent to the pump station, which is also owned by Trans Mountain, but leased for agricultural uses.
“Our main concern is for the clean-up of this spill and preventing further impacts to our territory. We need to have our monitors on the ground immediately,” said Sumas First Nation Chief Dalton Silver in a statement.
The Trans Mountain expansion project would nearly the 300,000 barrels it currently carries daily from Alberta to a terminal in Burnaby, B.C.
“We need to understand what is going on from our point of view, how much oil spilled, what has been impacted, and what needs to be done to clean it up. We cannot continue to have our land desecrated by oil spills. This is the fourth time in 15 years that this pipeline has had a spill on our land.”
The pipeline delivers crude oil and refined products through 1,150 kilometers of pipeline in Alberta and British Columbia, and 111 kilometers of pipeline in Washington state, according to its website.
With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press
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