AltaGas Ltd. was unearthing a stretch of its pipeline on Samson Cree First Nation near Hobbema on Thursday to determine the cause of a minor natural gas and light oil leak discovered on Tuesday.
The landowner came across the leak in his field, four km south of Hobbema, on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m.
The small pipeline, 116-mm in diameter, was shut down soon after the leak was discovered and cleanup started on Tuesday.
Jeremy Baines, AltaGas divisional vice-president, said the spill was small.
Baines said he didn’t have the final amount of liquid leaked, but it was contained to an area about 35 metres by 35 metres.
“By the end of the weekend it should be virtually clean. We’ve already been hauling soil out of there. All the surface liquid is gone. It wasn’t a large volume of contaminant,” Baines said on Thursday.
“It’s a minor release that can be cleaned up with minimal, if any, impact to the land,” said Darin Barter, spokesperson for Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board.
“It wasn’t near any water, standing water or running water. The terrain was dry and the section was used for farming.”
The ERCB is responsible for regulating the safe operation of pipelines in Alberta and has been on site to ensure cleanup is completed, for investigation and inspection.
“Until we have a look at what the break or leak looks like, we won’t have an understanding of whether it was a sudden rupture or a lengthier period of time,” Barter said.
“If there was something that impacted the health of that pipeline, we want to know.”
The pipeline was one of the short gathering lines coming out of natural gas wells in the area. The line flows west to east to Bonnie Glen gas processing plant.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com