If oil tankers can be double-hulled, why not use similar technology for pipelines running under rivers, suggested former Red Deer Conservative MP Bob Mills on Thursday.
“I wonder why you couldn’t do that with pipelines and thus prevent many of the spills we have today,” said Mills, in a speech to the Red Deer River Watershed Alliance at their annual general meeting.
Mills holds few illusions about what it would take to drive regulators to call for those kinds of changes to pipeline standards.
“Obviously, there has to be enough uproar about these spills.”
The fragility of Alberta’s pipeline system was put in the spotlight earlier this month when a Plains Midstream Canada line under the Red Deer River just north of Sundre spilled up to 3,000 barrels of light crude oil.
Booms were put up at Gleniffer Lake and work crews have been out in force cleaning up the mess.
The cause of the leak has not been determined.
Mills believes industry would be willing to upgrade pipelines at critical locations if the cost-benefit analysis favours more expensive pipelines and if all companies are facing the same financial requirements.
That something needs to be done to improve Alberta’s network of thousands of kilometres of aging pipelines is clear.
“You have to take care of this. You can’t continue to have this degradation of the environment.
“Or then you become like China.”
Mills, who has done much consulting and public speaking in China, said the government there has put the environment at the top of the list of its long-term plan. However, it took escalating levels of emphysema from smog and waterways so polluted they cause rashes, to put it there.
Canada has the opportunity to head off those kinds of environmental disasters long before it gets to that point, he said.
Not helpful to that end, was the federal government’s decision to axe the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, of which Mills is a member.
“I think it’s a big mistake,” he said.
“You’ve got to listen to all sides. You don’t have to agree with everything — but you have to listen.”
He went public with his opposition to the government’s plan earlier this month at a news conference, a stance that saw him interviewed by more than 80 newspapers and numerous other media outlets, he said.
Water, and its availability, will become a critical issue in coming decades for Canada, and especially for Western Canada where shortages and “desertification” of the land are expected as glaciers disappear because of global warming.
“The impacts of climate change are going to be huge on water,” he said. He urged Canadians to check out the round table’s work including several major reports on water at its website at http://nrtee-trnee.ca/
Governments must take a long-term approach to managing that resource to avoid future mayhem.
“You can’t plan in three-year cycles. You’ve to plan in 40-, 50-, 100-year cycles.”
Mountain View County Coun. Paddy Munro, who was attending the meeting, had little faith industry would spend more to upgrade their pipelines.
“Double-hulled pipelines? You’ve got to be kidding — that would cost money,” he said sarcastically.
“There’s not a chance in the world industry is going to willingly change these pipelines, even though they’re 50 years old.”
Munro said until provincial regulators get tough with oil companies, nothing will change.
Watershed Alliance board chairman Tom Daniels said the potential impact of pipelines and river crossings will be looked at as the group goes forward with its recommendations to government on the Red Deer River watershed.
“All I can do is say it’s coming. We’re going to be having a discussion on what the stakeholders want to do about it.”
The society is working on an Integrated Watershed Management Plan that is due to be done in early 2014.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com