Another oil spill from Canada's Enbridge | World News |Axisoflogic.com

The processing facility at the Suncor tar sands operations near Fort McMurray, Alberta, is seen in an undated file photo taken September 17, 2014. | Photo: Reuters

Canadian power company Enbridge has temporarily suspended operations of its plant and isolated one of its crude oil pipelines that connects to the United States after a 1,350 barrel, or 56,700 gallon oil spill, the company announced Wednesday.

It is the second large environmental accident associated with the company in the past five years.

While the time it will take for the company to clean up the spill is unclear, Enbridge insisted that no oil was spilled beyond the area of Regina Terminal in Saskatchewan, the site of the accident. The type of oil that leaked is yet to be determined. The 796,000 barrel a day Line 4 pipeline, which leads to a terminal in Wisconsin, transports heavy, medium, and light sour crude oil.

Graham White, a spokesperson for Enbridge told Reuters that the spill resulted from a valve problem, not because of a structural defect in the pipeline itself. He referred to it as a “relatively easy fix,” but did not give a timeline for the repairs.

“There are no impacts to the public, wildlife or waterways,” Enbridge assured in a company statement. “Nearby residents and businesses may detect a faint odour.”

According to a Kalamazoo live news service, Enbridge agreed to settle a four-year class action lawsuit over the largest and most expensive inland oil spill in U.S. history by paying US$6.75 million to local residents and property-owners affected by the spill that originated from the Calgary-based company’s Line 6B pipeline. The plaintiffs testified that they were exposed to toxic fumes, noise and a lowering of life quality after 800,000 gallons of thick Canadian tar sands crude flowed into Michigan’s Kalamazoo river in July 2010.

According to the The Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, a U.S. agency which evaluates environmental impacts of oil shale and tar sands, the toxic waste left behind after mining and processing tar sands produces a variety of undesired environmental effects, including global warming and greenhouse gases, disruptions of mined terrain; degradation of wildlife, flora, fauna, air and water quality. When tar sands, a combination of clay, sand, water, and a heavy oil called bitumen, leak into rivers, they do not float on top of the water like conventional crude oil. Instead, they sink to the bottom, making it harder to remove using normal cleanup methods. In addition, these spills unleash chemicals into the air as the tar sands liquefy.

For environmentalists, the 2010 Enbridge spill set a precedent for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. On Nov. 18, the 100-member U.S. Senate approved the Keystone XL pipeline in a 59-41 vote. The pipeline would carry approximately 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Protesters also marched on Friday in Minnesota’s capital St. Paul after the city’s Public Utilities Commission denied a request to reconsider a permit to allow Enbridge to set up operations in the northern part of the state.

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