Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?

Stephen Hume
Vancouver Sun
October 20, 2008

News of a second pipeline bombing in British Columbia's Peace River district splashed across headlines from New York to New Zealand.

Almost as quickly, anxious residents of Tomslake, about 700 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, speculated about al-Qaida, first nations militants and eco-extremists.

In these hypersensitive days when IED (improvised explosive device) is coffee-break vocabulary, news that the RCMP's anti-terrorist unit had taken over the investigation was a sure media trigger.

But Andrew Nikiforuk, the Calgary-based writer who made an exhaustive award-winning study of Albertans' conflicted relationship with the oil and gas industry, was quoted by Reuters as saying that he wouldn't describe the events as "eco-terrorism."

More likely somebody local with a grudge, he mused. That's how the last round of oilpatch violence from 1995 to 1998 turned out. Wiebo Ludwig, an Alberta farmer who said his family and livestock were harmed by gas emissions, went to jail.

And recently, local farmers and first nations in the Peace River have all protested against petroleum development, citing similar concerns to those expressed by Ludwig.

So history and circumstance -- the attempts to damage remote installations owned by EnCana were pretty inept-- make Nikiforuk's theory more plausible than hasty conclusions about a campaign by some sinister ideological underground.

However, the dramatic events of the last few days do point to underlying factors that should cause everybody to take notice.

First, these thankfully clumsy attacks demonstrate that Canada's oil and gas infrastructure is extraordinarily vulnerable and, by extension, so are citizens who live in proximity to well-heads, pipelines or gas plants.

Second, despite governments' enthusiastic support for the oil and gas sector -- it generates billions in annual cash flow -- disquiet among citizens regarding the industry's impact upon themselves, their families and their communities is far from isolated.

Complaints about infringements on property rights, elevated health risks and public safety have simmered in oil patch communities for almost 50 years. These fears endure despite scientific research, stringent safety regulations and intensive publicity campaigns intended to reassure. They are characterized by a visceral mistrust of authorities perceived to be in bed with industry.

For the most part, concerns are advanced not by environmental extremists but by the mainstream -- ranchers, suburban property owners, parents and school teachers, municipal politicians and elected Indian band councils.

Complaints at Pincher Creek in southern Alberta date from the 1960s.

In Turner Valley, Alta., where Western Canada's oil age began 86 years ago, residents petitioned the auditor-general of Canada over health and environmental worries associated with a gas plant there as recently as 2005. Just two weeks ago, an Alberta school board asked government to end plans to drill wells surrounding a rural elementary school.

Much concern revolves around sour gas exposure, either from catastrophic drilling accidents, pipeline ruptures or the practice of "flaring" or burning off surplus gas.

For natural gas to be defined as "sour" rather than "sweet," it has to contain one per cent or more hydrogen sulphide, a toxic compound so lethal that in concentrations as small as 250 parts per million, deaths can occur in minutes. Concentrations in the wells that caused the recent uproar among Alberta parents, teachers and school trustees are 160,000 ppm.

About 30 per cent of Western Canada's natural gas is sour and it travels through a pipeline network so extensive that if laid end to end, it would reach the moon. Yet industry has a long history of accidents.

Sour gas blowouts have bracketed Alberta's provincial capital. The downwind plume of one in 1982 carried hydrogen sulphide as far as Winnipeg. In 1979, a gas pipeline rupture forced evacuation of a whole Edmonton suburb of 18,000. A sour gas pipeline failed near Pincher Creek in 2007, forcing an evacuation. A well blowout in 2004 created a massive crater and spewed gas for 30 days. The most recent blowout was contained southeast of Calgary on Oct. 3.

shume@islandnet.com

B.C. blasts ‘way too close to home'

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — When Christine Mortensen heard about a second attack on a pipeline near Dawson Creek, she didn't need to stretch her imagination to speculate how such an attack could affect her.

Within a 10-minute walk in any direction from her home are pipelines, wells and a stack that on occasion flares natural gas day and night, shooting a banner of flame into the sky.

“It is just way too close to home,” Ms. Mortensen said yesterday in her front yard across the road from an EnCana site dominated by a flare stack. Like others in the region, she is worried and frightened by the attacks, which RCMP say are linked and occurred after a threatening letter was sent last week to local newspapers demanding that oil and gas interests leave the area.

Yesterday, RCMP explosives experts were combing the site of the second blast, which was discovered on Thursday morning after two workers doing routine maintenance work heard a hissing noise, depressurized that section of the pipeline and called police.

The first blast occurred on Saturday night and was discovered by a hunter who came across a two-metre-deep crater beneath an EnCana pipeline in a stretch of bush about 50 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.

The second occurred nearby, at an EnCana site only a few kilometres off the main highway between Dawson Creek and the Alberta line. Like the first, it caused minimal damage to the pipeline and no injuries to workers or area residents, resulting in black humour among residents about a hapless bomber.

But both targeted pipelines carry natural gas that contains hydrogen sulphide, a potentially lethal chemical, and residents are unnerved by the prospect of other explosions.

Both EnCana and the RCMP have increased security around oil and gas operations, but it's impossible to guard every facility all the time, RCMP spokesman Tim Shields told reporters yesterday.

The attacks took place in an area of the province where oil and gas activity has boomed and where some residents have complained about the wells and pipelines springing up on their pastures and fields.

EnCana on Thursday said the natural gas in the pipes contained a very small percentage of hydrogen sulphide, about 0.07 per cent, and that the amount of gas released was very small and did not present a danger to the public.

The post-blast specialists will try to recreate what happened and determine what kind of explosives were used, RCMP spokesman Sergeant Tim Shields told reporters yesterday.

Sour gas anger may be root of pipe attacks

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The saboteur who attacked two pipelines in northeastern British Columbia in the past week is likely somebody who has been hurt by sour gas development, according to an author who has studied past attacks on Canada's energy infrastructure.

Police asked the public for help on Friday in their probe of the blasts, which have not caused any injuries but rattled nerves in the area around the town of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, a hotbed of energy development.

Police believe the pipeline bombings are linked, and likely connected to a letter sent to media last week warning the "terrorist" energy industry to stop the "crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our home lands."

"I wouldn't describe it as eco-terrorism. I don't know many environmentalists who are handy with dynamite. It's more likely this is a local landowner ... somebody who has been harmed," said Calgary-based author Andrew Nikiforuk.

The attacker could also be from the area's aboriginal community, which has sparred with the industry over drilling for sour gas, natural gas that contains high levels of toxic hydrogen sulfide.

Nikiforuk wrote a book about Wiebo Ludwig, a rural commune leader in Alberta convicted of bombing gas wells and other vandalism in the 1990s to protest sour gas drilling.

The attacked lines carried gas to an EnCana Corp, facility that removes the hydrogen sulfide so the gas can be sold to consumers. The letter called for the facility to be closed.

The recent attacks were likely done by somebody who knows enough about explosives to damage but not destroy the lines, which would have created a fireball and released a deadly cloud of gas that would have spread quickly, Nikiforuk said.

"I think we have somebody here who is very skillful at making headlines, and if they wanted to kill a whole bunch of people they would have done so," Nikiforuk said.

There was no gas leak following the first blast last week and only a small one in the second incident, which was quickly sealed when workers discovered it on Thursday.

Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police anti-terrorism squad collected evidence on Friday from the scenes, which were not far from the Alberta-British Columbia border.

"The intention of these criminal acts to harm important Canadian infrastructure is not being tolerated," police said in statement, which called on anyone who has information about the attacks to "do the right thing" and come forward.

Security has been stepped up around pipelines and other energy facilities in northeastern British Columbia, but experts say there are limits to what can be done. The province has about 43,000 km (27,000 miles) of pipelines.

"You can put up all the chain link fences in the world. If they want to do it, they're going to do it," said Steve Simons, corporate affairs leader at the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission.

The most recent incident was on a line carrying between 40 million and 50 million cubic feet of gas a day. The first bombing was on a line carrying 60 million cubic feet per day, according to EnCana.

A company spokesman said the line that suffered a small leak was still shut down, but the company's other facilities in the area were operating normally.

Second pipeline explosion bears marks of sabotage, RCMP say

An RCMP van blocked the gravel road going past an EnCana transfer station near Dawson Creek, B.C., as investigators scoured a pipeline site Thursday searching for clues to the second apparent sabotage within a week to target the company's operations.

The site, in an area where horses graze amid trees and gas flares stand out against the sky, is home to one of many EnCana operations in the area and seems an unlikely battleground.

But RCMP said on Thursday the attack bore all the hallmarks of a previous incident.

The latest occurrence ruptured a pipeline in northeastern British Columbia, causing the escape of dangerous hydrogen sulphide gas and raising tensions in a region where intense resource activity is under way.
Damage caused to a natural gas pipeline is seen east of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, in this October 12, 2008 handout released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Police said on Thursday that another pipeline, this time owned by Encana, was hit by another explosive device.
Enlarge Image

Damage caused to a natural gas pipeline is seen east of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, in this October 12, 2008 handout released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Police said on Thursday that another pipeline, this time owned by Encana, was hit by another explosive device. (Reuters/RCMP/Handout)

The first attempt to sabotage an EnCana gas pipeline occurred Saturday night, about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, and the RCMP reported that damage from the second blast, at a nearby location, was discovered Thursday morning.

Several police units, including the RCMP's terrorist squad, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, are investigating the two attacks.

While EnCana described the incident Thursday as “a natural gas leak at a field facility,” RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields described it as a second sabotage attempt.

“There certainly appears to have been [a bomb]. We have a crater in the ground about four feet across and there is damage to the pipeline. It's dented in. There was also a small leak that was quickly contained by pipeline workers. This is within 20 kilometres of the first incident … and it has all the earmarks of the first incident,” Sgt. Shields said.

“We don't know exactly when it occurred because there were no witnesses who heard the explosion.”

The first blast blew a similar hole in the dirt and damaged, but did not breach, the pipeline.

Sgt. Shields noted that both lines were carrying sour gas, which contains hydrogen sulphide, a potentially lethal gas that can drift several kilometres.

In a statement, EnCana said the second incident was discovered by company workers who, since the weekend, have been on the alert for any suspicious activity in the area.

“The facility was quickly shut down and the leak was stopped once the line was depressurized,” the company said. “The amount of gas that leaked was very small and it did not present any danger to employees or the public. The natural gas contained a very small percentage of hydrogen sulphide, about 0.07 per cent. There were no injuries and residents were notified of the event.”

The company said police were immediately notified. “EnCana's primary focus is on the safety of employees, workers and the residents in and around our facilities,” the statement said.

The attacks on the gas lines came shortly after a small-town publication, the Coffee Talk Express, in Chetwynd, received a letter warning oil and gas companies to stop production and leave the area by noon Saturday. The letter did not contain any specific threats, but referred to the oil and gas industry as “terrorists … endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells.”

The Peace River area has been the focus of intense oil and gas activity for the past several years, with BP Canada planning to drill 132 new wells near Kelly Lake and the building of EnCana's $60-million Steep Rock gas plant in 2006. Along with all this activity has come growing concerns voiced by area residents.

Landowners near the hamlet of Tomslake, 28 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, protested on a gas-industry access road this summer, and the Kelly Lake Cree Nation blockaded a road for two days to underline their safety concerns.

Iva Tuttle, a retired rancher in Tomslake Valley, said a lot of people are upset over how rapidly the gas industry has been drilling sour gas wells in the area – but she couldn't imagine any of her neighbours sabotaging a pipeline.

“There is worry but I don't think they are going to go out and do something like this,” she said of the two bomb attacks. “I think somebody's boiled over. And you know what? It surprised me.

“I've never had somebody come up and say I want to blow up a line or, you know, it needs to be blown up. The people I deal with … know the risk of what could happen if something would go wrong. I can understand frustration. I can understand anger … But to do something like that is really stupid because you are only endangering your neighbours.”

At the Tomslake General Store, patrons shook their heads over the event, saying that the attacks show a lack of regard for people in the region.

“There's been a lot of concern about pipelines being close to residential areas and schools,” said long-time resident Bonnie Brait, voicing common concerns about the release of hydrogen sulphide gas. “If you have a leak, and the big pipeline is right across the road, you don't have a hope.”

Another resident, Rick Site, said he and his wife have their home up for sale, in part because the area has become too busy as a result of oil and gas activity. A member of the volunteer fire department, he recalls an incident last summer when people had to be evacuated from an area across the highway from the home where he lives with his wife and two young children.

In summer months, the noise of nearby rigs was so loud, he kept his windows closed most of the time. But the main reason he's moving, he said, is because his home has become too small for his family.

One of many local people who rely on the industry for his livelihood, he says any person who would attack or sabotage a pipeline is “going overboard.”

“You may not like everything you see, but that's not a way to go about changing it,” he said.

See:
2nd explosion rocks northern B.C. pipeline
RCMP terror squad probes pipeline bombing