It could be weeks before the cause of a pipeline break that led to contaminated water leaking into a Joffre-area canola field is known.
Greg Moffatt, Penn West Exploration’s manager of government and industry relations, said the section of affected pipeline will be cut out and sent to an independent “third-party lab” for examination.
The laboratory is expected to determine the cause of the leak. But Moffat said there’s no timeline for this.
“It could take a few weeks, or it could take a month,” depending on how busy the lab is.
The Calgary-based company, whose pipeline spilled about 300,000 litres of produced water from an oil well site onto the field, intends to compensate the farmer for lost production.
While most of the saline water has been removed, Moffatt said collection holes have been dug to catch runoff after rains.
Soil testing is also being done and the company will be proceeding with a site remediation plan, he added.
The farmer has declined comment on the extent of damage to his field and the crop that was growing there.