Over the past 37 years, there have been 28,666 crude oil spills reported in Alberta, according to a report by Global News (with information from the Energy Resources Conservation Board). That means Alberta has had an average of two oil spills per day, every day for the past 37 years.
It is clear oil spills happen all of the time in this province, which makes one wonder why it takes so much time and effort for oil companies to clean up these messes.
A perfect example is the on-going clean-up efforts at one of the four CNRL Primrose sites that has spilled bitumen emulsion to the surface for months since late last May. The company has spent an entire year of resources and millions of dollars to clean up its spill, which they still don't know the official cause of.
Last week, the BC Liberal government came up with the interesting idea of creating an industry-funded oil spill clean up response team. The group would be prepared and ready to clean up any oil spills on land and be run similarly to the federally mandated group that exists for marine spills.
At first, I thought this was a great idea. As I mentioned above, oil spills happen all of the time in Western Canada. A prepared group of experts to come in and cleanup in a timely fashion, while mitigating damages, would be great. A prepared group of workers trained in cleaning up oil spills, equipped with the right gear, would be able to come in and do a quicker and more effective job than what seems to currently be the case.
The model they could follow would be similar to the Western Canada Marine Response Corp. (WCMRC), which was mandated in 1995 and cleans up about 20 spills annually.
The cost of creating an industry-funded group wouldn't be a problem, as oil companies in Canada have been greatly expanding production and profits for the past decade.
The BC Liberals like the idea so much the party listed it as one of its five conditions that have to be met before the government will support Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline.
I also liked the idea, but there is an aspect about it that worries me. Does creating an oil spill response team mean we are giving up on trying to significantly reduce spills from happening in the first place? To me, the creation of this team would allow industry to accept the fact thousands of spills happen every year.
If an industry-funded oil spill response team is going to be created, why not also create an industry-funded oil spill research team? The research team would be dedicated to finding the cause of oil spills while also looking into ways they can be avoided. Many recent spills, such as the CNRL spill, have caused people to question the technology used to collecting and transporting bitumen. This research team could investigate and look at the technology used today to see if it is the safest and most effective possible.
If industry funded an oil spill cleanup and research team, it could go a long way to showing the public that it is not only trying to better clean up spills, but actually trying to reduce the overall number of oil spills and the toll they take on the environment.
