Prince Albert has a few days worth of water stored in reservoirs and has also been preparing to treat water from its stormwater retention ponds while oil from Thursday’s spill flows past.
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Earlier provincial government officials said, because of high water levels, booms placed on the river at the end of last week failed to contain the spread of the spilled oil near Maidstone, at a site about 30 kilometres southeast of the Alberta border at Lloydminster.
Prince Albert is declaring a state of emergency as an oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River reaches the city’s water supply. The town has a ground water supply as well.
Ferris says preparations are also being made further downstream after the North Saskatchewan and the South Saskatchewan rivers converge, where a Saskatchewan Water Corporation intake draws water for Melfort and other municipalities.
The company had shut down the line and put out booms across the North Saskatchewan River about 40 kilometers upstream from North Battleford.
About 70,000 litres of an oil-soil mixture have been cleaned up around the source of the leak and another 118,000 litres of oily water has been skimmed from the river, but officials don’t know how much oil has been recovered.
“The facts remain that if we’re not moving by a pipeline, it’s going to move …”
North Battleford shut down its intake last Friday and Prince Albert did so Monday.
The northern city of Prince Albert has a 48-hour storage capacity of potable water. The oil no longer just on the surface of the water, complicating efforts. He said: “The water is quite dirty with suspended particulates and whatnot, and in some cases you can get oil attached to those particulates”.
Pate many components will be part of the investigation. “The leak was kind of in a location near the river”.
“If we have a pipeline spill, we address the pipeline spill”, Ghosh said on the conference call Friday.
“We are very concerned”. It has said it has alternatives ways to move oil and expects “minimal impact”.
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Husky’s nearby operations, which include heavy oil production, an asphalt refinery and an upgrader to turn the crude into synthetic oil, are expected to see minimal effects to production because of the flexibility of the rest of the gathering system, Peabody said.
