Wednesday June 2nd, 2010 - British Columbia Has Its Own Oil Leak, And Possible Cover-Up

British Columbia has an oil leak. No, it is nowhere as dramatic as that happening off the Gulf Coast of the United States, but Chevron Canada Ltd. saw fit to keep the April 21st leak from its Burnaby refinery out of the public eye until May 28th. Compared to Louisiana, the leak, somewhere between 50 and 100 millilitres a day, or roughly a litre a month, could almost be called miniscule.

But the thing is, Chevron, has no idea where the gas and oil is leaking from and how long it has been leaking. It does not appear that there is much of an attempt to find out .One would think that Chevron would realize that you can’t fix what you don’t find.

The NDP party and a high profile environmental organization have gotten wind of the oil leak and are accusing the Liberal party of not doing enough to force Chevron to find and stop the leak. Rather, the ministry is only taking the word of Chevron, which is filing reports on its “progress” to the government.

As the story unfolds this is sure to become a political hot potato. What is worse is that the Chevron officials and perhaps the government entities they have reported to have made two grave errors. One is that the time period between the “discovery” of the oil and gas leak and the admitting of such leak to the public suggests a cover up.

The other is that all involved seem to have forgotten the fact that British Columbia is on an active fault zone. Earthquakes tend to make little leaks turn into big ones. There may be, as stated by the minister, no threat to the environment, but one big shake and that could change, in a heartbeat. Bottom line; fix the bloody thing before we end up with Louisiana north.