So far the damage has been minor and no one hurt but blowing up sour gas wells is not a good idea.
WENDY STUECK
Globe and Mail Update
VANCOUVER — A third attack has been discovered on a pipeline in the Dawson Creek area of northeastern British Columbia.
The target was a natural gas wellhead about 12 kilometres northwest of Tomslake, a small town near Dawson Creek.
A small amount of gas leaked, but the public is not in danger, the RCMP said in a statement. EnCana engineers were containing the leak, and the blast was in a rural, isolated area.
The blast site was discovered about 12:30 p.m. PT Friday.
EnCana spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said there was “very minimal damage.”
“There are residents in the area but no one even living close enough that they would fall into our emergency response plan,” she said.
EnCana community representative Brian Lieverse, reached as he was driving to the scene, would not speculate on whether it was industrial sabotage or a Halloween prank.
“We are concerned,” Mr. Lieverse said.
The first two blasts occurred in October after local newspapers received a handwritten letter demanding that oil and gas interests leave the area.
Although residents had been on edge over the possibility of another attack, news of the damage at the third site still came as a surprise, said Cliff Calliou, chief of the nearby Kelly Lake Cree Nation.
“I was surprised; it is a surprise that someone would do that,” said Mr. Calliou, who lives in Kelly Lake, a small community in an area criss-crossed by pipelines.
“It's someone going and challenging the law, and it's really a serious matter.”
The attacks have targeted EnCana pipelines that carry sour gas – natural gas that contains hydrogen sulphide, which has a characteristic rotten-egg smell at lower concentrations and can be lethal at higher concentrations.
Several Kelly Lake residents have been questioned in connection with the pipeline investigation, Mr. Calliou said.
Members of the blast investigation team last week travelled to Alberta to arrest a man on outstanding B.C. warrants. The RCMP have not said whether the man, 21-year-old Kelly Lake resident Ian Gladue, is a suspect or a person of interest in the investigation.
new ends hereThe attacks have resulted in both EnCana and RCMP stepping up security around natural gas facilities.
Calgary-based EnCana is a major player in the region. The company's Steeprock plant, a $60-million processing facility opened in 2006, was the biggest such plant to be built in B.C. in a decade.
EnCana has been operating in the area for about 14 years. The company says its sour gas pipelines are equipped with automatic emergency shutdown valves that would “shut in,” or contain, an affected part of a pipeline if a change in pressure – from, for example, a rupture resulting from an explosion – were detected.
The RCMP's anti-terrorist unit, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, has taken the lead in the investigation because the attacks were directed at Canada's critical infrastructure, the force says.
In October, the RCMP took the unusual step of ruling out convicted bomber Wiebo Ludwig as a suspect, after media reports quoted Mr. Ludwig saying that he had spoken to police and was not a suspect in the investigation.
Mr. Ludwig lives on a commune-style property near Hythe, close to the B.C.-Alberta boundary and about an hour's drive from the area where the recent blasts occurred.
He was released from jail in 2001 after serving 19 months of a 28-month sentence for charges related to bombings and other vandalism of oil and gas wells in Alberta in the 1990s.
The attacks have brought back memories of Mr. Ludwig's anti-industry campaign in Alberta and triggered speculation there could be some connection between him and the incidents in B.C.
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 have 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.
Investigators are at the latest blast site and the RCMP have set up a tip line in relation to the investigation.
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