Dustin Duncan meets with the media. Photo courtesy of Manfred Joehnck.
A full report on the July Husky oil spill into the North Saskatchewan river is still weeks away, but the province’s new energy minister wants to make sure it won’t happen again.
Dustin Duncan has announced a province wide inspection of all pipelines that cross, or are near water sources used for drinking water. There are 125 of them, 35 are considered to be high priority and will be inspected first. The other 90 involve pipelines under or near tributaries to major water supplies.
The inspections will start on the North Saskatchewan River, which was the site of the Husky spill that dumped about 250 thousand litres of oil in the river, contaminating drinking water supplies to several communities. Energy Minister, Dustin Duncan wants to give residents some piece of mind.
“We just wanted to ensure that Saskatchewan people can feel secure about their potable water sources,” he said. “We need to be sure we have the proper processes and the proper regulations in place to ensure that it is safe, and in the event there is an incident, we can follow up in a very timely fashion.”
Inspection of 22 of the sites is almost complete. Duncan says Husky has been cooperative with the department and will release a full report into the July 21st spill sometime next month.
Meanwhile, the cleanup of the Husky spill is continuing. The oil has traveled over 350 kilometres from the site of the spill near Maidstone to as far away as the James Smith Cree nation and Melfort.