General

Pipeline spills oil into Red Deer river tributary

A sizable 1,000 to 3,000 barrels of oil leaked from an Alberta pipeline into Jackson Creek, a tributary of the Red Deer river near the town of Sundre, Alta.

The leak was discovered Thursday night by Sundre Petroleum Operators Group, a not-for-profit group, which then alerted the operator of the pipeline, Plains Midstream Canada, a subsidiary of Plains All American American Pipeline LP.

The company says it shut down all of its operations in the area to isolated the pipeline, which leaked 160,000 to 475,000 litres of light crude oil into Jackson Creek. The Energy Resource Conservation Board, Alberta Environment and Alberta Health are working with the company to track the evolution of the spill and investigate its causes.

According to the Globe and Mail, Plains is the same company that saw a 28,000-barrel leak from one of its pipelines in northern Alberta last year.

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