U.S. oil spill raises concerns about Northern Gateway project from Alta. to B.C.

George T. Baker, Prince Rupert Daily News, January 19, 2010--An oil spill at an Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) pipeline in North Dakota has raised questions over the reliability of the company's Northern Gateway project in B.C.

Prince Rupert, B.C. environmentalist Jennifer Rice said the spill of an estimated 477,000 litres of crude oil is adding to opposition of the proposed project between Alberta and the West Coast.

"Enbridge simply cannot prevent oil spills from its pipelines," said Rice, of the Friends of Wild Salmon. "And in our watersheds, even one oil spill of this magnitude is unacceptable."

The Northern Gateway pipeline would carry oil from the Alberta tar sands to a supertanker port at Kitimat, B.C., crossing several wild salmon watersheds.

Last week's leak was located in Pembina County, North Dakota.

"Had the spill occurred here in northern B.C. along Enbridge's proposed pipeline, the effects could have been catastrophic to the Skeena's wild salmon economy, estimated to be worth over $100 million per year," Rice said.

Northern Gateway spokesman Steve Greenaway said the company can't prevent every leak but tries its best. "We think we have a good track record and technology has allowed us to be a very safe operator of the movement of oil."
Greenaway said Enbridge has 50 or 60 leaks a year - the average for the past two or three years. "The majority of those are contained within our facilities and those incidents would happen at a facility like a pumping station where we might have leaks as small as (eight litres)," Greenaway said.

The U.S. pipeline is part of the massive system that transports most western Canadian oil to the American Midwest, Oklahoma and southern Ontario. The line that was damaged extends to Superior, Wis., from Manitoba. Canada is the top exporter of oil to the U.S., exporting more than 1.9 million barrels per day