Quote:
Originally Posted by chemgear
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...anup-zama.html
Apache refused a request by CBC News to see the pipeline from which the spill originated.
Company officials say they don't know how long it will take to complete their cleanup.
The Dene Tha' First Nation said Thursday in a news release that a Dene Tha' field technician who visited the site on June 6 saw that all plants and trees affected by the spill had died, and that the contamination had saturated the muskeg in the area.
It said a field technician advised Thursday that fluid is still being released from the pipe, but is now contained within in a storage pit that is pumped out into holding tanks.
The First Nation says the amount of dead vegetation in the area clearly visible from a helicopter may indicate the spill had been occurring for a long period of time.
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I have worked with the Dene "field techs" before and I would not put too much stock into what they have to say. They know the area and the facilities very well but their technical knowledge; especially when it comes to environmental matters, is a bit lacking IMO.
Of course the ground is saturated with contamination. Muskeg is by defination saturated. The contamination you can see (
i.e. hydrocarbons) is less dense than water and will sit on top of the water table. You're not going to be able to visually see the salinity and metals contamination, just the result of it.
Of course fluid is coming out of the line still. A spill that big in extent likely has multiple holes in the line. The water in the 'skeg is probably getting into the line from the other holes and spilling out in the bell hole, what are you going to do, drain the entire region?
What I believe is most troublesome of the information released today is that the line is only 5 years old (
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle12536856/).
I would guess that most of the infrastructure in this area is decades older than that.