The provincial government is undertaking its own independent water sampling and testing in the North Saskatchewan River after an oil spill almost two weeks ago according to the premier.
On July 21, Husky Energy officials said a sheen was noticed on the river near one of their pipelines north of Maidstone. It leaked roughly 200,000 to 250,000 liters of blended crude oil from an overland pipe into the river.
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The company released initial water sampling results Wednesday that showed five of roughly 900 samples didn’t pass Canadian drinking water standards. Premier Brad Wall indicated the province would undertake similar measures and make the results public.
“We want to make sure that obviously that the testing is accurate, and that its ongoing, that it’s happening at a very regular occurrence and interval,” Wall said to reporters at the end of a trip to North Battleford.
He added that provincial water security officials would “go over the testing that’s been done by others and they continue to do that.”
The comments came in the midst of the premier’s first trip to North Battleford and Prince Albert, since the two cities stopped drawing drinking water from the North Saskatchewan River.
When asked if he had any idea about the cause of the pipeline spill, Wall said he wouldn’t speculate until a full investigation takes place.
“There’s a number of theories as to why it might have happened at that particular point but none of them have been verified,” Wall said.
“Until that occurs I think we should be circumspect.”
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Wall also stressed that while Saskatchewan’s pipeline system is large, the government has previously moved to strengthen pipeline regulation and inspection procedures.
“We actually removed some other duties from those involved in pipeline inspection and gave them to others within government so that this could be the sole focus of inspectors,” Wall said.
“There is a requirement too that companies provide that inspection and that oversight and we’re going to do an investigation into this.”
Wall said the review by the government will seek to “learn what we can and prevent something like this from happening again.”
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