Yet another ‘ very rare’ oil spill with ‘ no impact’
Enbridge spokesman Les Scott described the Jan. 18 spill of 125 barrels of oil at the Rowatt Pumping Station along the company’s Alberta-Wisconsin pipeline as a “very rare” incident with “no impact.” (Company Responds to Rowatt Oilspill, SP, Jan. 22, 2014.)
“Very rare” is a relative concept, it would seem, as is “no impact.” Oil spills must have some impact or why would the Saskatchewan Government require companies to report every spill, even small ones, and track them on its Upstream Oil and Gas Spill Database?
A quick check of the online database (www.economy. shows 91 reported spills by Enbridge between June 2006 and April 2013, when the database was last updated. That’s an average of 11 reported spills a year. I’m not sure 11 per year is “very rare,” though it probably seems that way given the pipeline moves 450,000 barrels of oil a day.
Most of the spills were very small and confined within the company’s leases, according to the database. A few spills were larger, however, including spills of 1,300 cubic metres (8,176 barrels.) In all, the company has spilled 2,788 cubic metres or 17,500 barrels. Most of the spilled fluids have been retrieved, but not all. For example, 15 cubic metres, close to 100 barrels, was not recovered from a 1,300 cubic metre spill.
No doubt, great efforts are made to clean up these spills and environmental impacts are limited. But what are the cumulative impacts of all the spills that happen in this province?
In a previous column in June, I reported that the spill database contains records of 15,772 reported spills since 1990, 685 a year on average. While the vast majority are small — much smaller than the Rowatt spill — some are large, including a single oil spill of two million litres.
The total volume of oil, gas, wastewater, condensate and chemical spilled in Saskatchewan over the 23year period is substantial, at 341 million litres (about 2.1 million barrels.) While it appears most spills have been contained on site, the total spill area affected as of April 2013 totalled 11 million square metres.
Of course the oil industry says there is no need to worry and industry is improving its environmental performance. It seems not. The number of spills in Saskatchewan in recent years — 805 in 2011 and 754 in 2012 — was well above the 23-year average.
I thought there would be a reaction to that column, but nary a peep was heard. Perhaps we have come to accept the fact that oil spills large and small, ruptured pipelines, derailed and exploding trains and exploding offshore oil rigs are the price we pay for our energyintensive lifestyle and there is nothing we can do about it.
Well, there is something we could do about it. Stop propping up an unsustainable energy system with hefty subsidies, for starters. The International Monetary Fund estimates that coal, electricity, oil, and natural gas consumption and production subsidies, including subsidies paid to oil companies, total $1.9 trillion a year. And this amount does not include externalities — the social, health, environmental and economic costs triggered by the use of fossil fuels.
From an emissions perspective, the Worldwatch Institute reports that while eight per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions are subject to a carbon price, 15 per cent receive supports of $110 per ton. A phase out of fossil fuel subsidies would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 360 million tons in 2020 — 12 per cent of the emission savings that are needed to keep the increase in global temperature to 2 C.
In other words, 12 per cent of emissions could be reduced with a savings to the global taxpayer of as much as $ 1.9 trillion. Switching that kind of spending over to conservation and renewables would allow us to stop the expansion of oil extraction, which would mean fewer oil spills and explosions, while curbing climate change.
We can’t stop pollution, including climate pollution, by increasing the production, distribution and consumption of the thing that causes it. That should be obvious. It must not be, because it’s just what Canada is doing.