Canadian Officials Fear Pipeline Spill Could Poison Water Supply
By Peak Johnson
In Quebec, water treatment officials fear for their supply of drinking water in the event of a major spill from the Energy East pipeline.
Most of the wastewater treatment plants have no water intake in case an event like that ever takes place, according to The Montreal Gazette.
A report from last year said that TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline would pose a threat to the drinking water supply of Manitoba, the Canadian province bordered by Ontario.
According to Processing Magazine, the $12 billion pipeline carries 1.1 million barrels of oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada. However, the report, commissioned by the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, initially said that there is a risk that a rupture would send oil into waterways that feed into municipal water supplies.
The coalition of environmental groups claimed that this would directly threaten the drinking water of more than 850,000 Manitobans, including the entire population of Winnipeg.
According to the report, if the Energy East pipeline ruptured closing the valve on a major water crossing would not be effective. A rupture on even a minor water crossing could drain into waterways that local people depend on.
One section of the pipeline would partly run underneath an aqueduct that supplies drinking water to Winnipeg from Shoal Lake, Ontario. The entire length of the 100-year-old aqueduct is in danger of contamination from the pipeline, the report said.
The National Water Treatment Training Centre, run by Commission scolaire des Trois-Lacs, is one of two such centers in Quebec. It produced a 40-page draft on the Energy East TransCanada pipeline, evaluating the impact on drinking water from a potential major oil spill.
Guy Coderre, one of the presenters, did not pull any punches, saying that the “flushgate” in Montreal, the Saguenay flood, and drinking water problems experienced in the wake of the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic would be nothing compared to what might happen to the water supply in case of a major spill of East Energy pipeline.
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