An independent third party is being hired to look into pipeline safety in the province.
Energy Minister Ken Hughes made the announcement on Friday, on the heels of three recent pipeline spills that occurred in the province in less than a month.
The independent third party, along with the Energy Resources Conservation Board, will examine how pipeline integrity is managed, how safety of pipelines crossing water ways is ensured, and how responses to pipeline incidents are handled.
“I’d like to be in a position to ensure Albertans that yes indeed, we are performing at the pest possible level, and if we aren’t, that we know what those gaps are and we’re upping our game in those gaps,” Hughes said in Calgary on Friday.
The new pipeline safety review will look at existing regulations and industry practices in Alberta and around the world.
That review will run in conjunction with the current incident-specific investigations the ERCB is conducting.
Hughes said the review could lead to an overhaul in industry standards.
“It could lead to improved regulatory oversight,” Hughes said.
“It could lead to improved enforcement and certainly the industry would be responding as well.”
The independent review comes after three pipeline spills in the province in less than one month, including a Plains Midstream line that poured half a million litres of oil into the Red Deer River and Glennifer Lake.
The opposition says the pipeline review needs to be completely independent.
NDP MLA David Eggen said the Auditor General needs to review the pipelines, not an un-named third party and the ERCB, which Eggen says is primarily industry-funded.
“It’s very important that we have an independent, transparent investigation into pipeline safety,” said NDP David Eggen.
“We need an expedient resolution as to why our pipeline safety and regulations are not being monitored properly.”
The Wildrose party said more details and a firm timeline needs to be announced by the province.
Friday’s announcement came as members of Greenpeace took to the steps of the Alberta Legislature, armed with photos they say prove the government and oil companies aren’t upholding their commitments to the environment.
The photos come from the Rainbow Pipeline spill back in April 2011 and suggest at least part of the site remains heavily contaminated despite company suggestions that the cleanup is complete.
The group also showed water and soil samples, evidence they say was taken just one week ago from a pond near the spill site.
“What we found was a black body of water that had a complete black surface on top with black sludge along the shoreline. There was no life in this body of water, nor was there any vegetation on along the shoreline,” said Melina Laboucan-Massimo with Greenpeace Canada.
Plains Midstream Canada writes on its website that “all clean-up and remediation work, including excavation and handling of oil-contaminated soils, has been completed” and that “within three months of the release, all recoverable free oil was removed from the release site.”
Laboucan-Massimo said the evidence she recovered from an area of the site last week says otherwise.
“The claim is clearly misleading and sorely inadequate,” Laboucan-Massimo said.
Greenpeace has made repeated calls for an independent pipeline review, and Hudema says the ERCB, who signed off on the Rainbow Lake cleanup, cannot be trusted because they’re too close to the government.
“I think what you see in these photographs is another example of why we need a truly independent review of pipeline safety in this province,” said Mike Hudema said with Greenpeace.
“Asking the ERCB to do a pipeline review is like asking your child to review the state of the cleanliness of his own room.”
Alberta has almost 400,000 kilometres of provincially-regulated pipeline.
With files from Brenna Rose
