Wapiti Valley, Saskatchewan. Photo courtesy of Enns Kivin, Facebook.
Six weeks after the Husky Energy oil spill into the North Saskatchewan River, there are still a few unanswered questions.
Provincial officials have not yet been able to provide an estimated cost of the cleanup efforts or what potentially caused the oil spill. However, officials do say Husky Energy will be taking up the majority of the cleanup costs.
Laurie Pushor is with the Ministry of Economy, she says in regards to the unanswered questions, they don’t want to speculate and will providing a full report when the answers are available.
“As we have said in the past, we are not prepared to speculate on causes,” said Pushor. “We will do a full and comprehensive review and it will be released when completed.”
On Friday afternoon, the province provided an update on the cleanup efforts and water testing.
According to Wes Kotyk with the Ministry of Environment, cleanup efforts have resumed now that water levels on the river have dropped.
The water was cresting over four metres last week, but is down to two-point-three metres this week. Kotyk expects that number to drop even further next week. He expects the cleanup efforts to continue into October.
Sam Ferris, from the Water Security Agency, says there have been no new reported exceedances in surface water tests for any drinking water quality standards or guidelines. Only one exceedance had been previously reported on a sample taken near North Battleford.
Ferris did comment on the testing of oil foam taken near James Smith Cree Nation. He says the first sample has not shown any exceedances and did not have enough forensic evidence to show them if the oil in the First Nation was from the Husky spill. He says they just received another sample of foam in the area, but couldn’t confirm if the tests on this sample would show if the oil was indeed from the spill.
Ferris also says there is no timeline on when water intakes along the city would be reopened, but he was confident they would be reopened before winter.