Oil Spill Sticky
Hugh Harden, vice-president of operations and engineering with Kinder Morgan, flew in from Calgary, Canada, to sit on a panel at the meeting, along with Kinder Morgan communications manager Lexa Hobenshield. Tim Sullivan of the National Energy Board also arrived. Other panel members included Abbotsford Fire Chief Don Beer, resident and moderator John Vissers, and Councillor Patricia Ross.
Speakers in the crowd of about 70 people blamed unexplained symptoms on the oil fumes, and took issue with Kinder Morgan describing the smell as "nuisance odours" or an "inconvenience" that posed no health concerns.
Vivian Betrand, who is pregnant and has two young children at home, was jogging on the morning of the spill and wanted to know if the fumes posed a health risk. Dana Miller, said she is healthy but has been to the hospital emergency ward twice with chest pains since the spill. She didn't even know there was a spill until her household received a letter from Kinder Morgan last week.
Fire Chief Don Beer and Harold Riedler, an emergency officer with the Ministry of Environment, both said a series of air quality tests conducted by an independent contractor didn't detect any benzene, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or high level explosive vapours. Riedler said Fraser Health, Environment Canada and the Ministry of Agriculture were kept abreast of events throughout the day. However, Sunderland believes no air quality tests were made early in the day.
People also questioned Kinder Morgan's response time. One man said his wife could smell crude at 7PM the day before the spill, and police report they got a call at 4:30AM. Tiffany Kafka said a Kinder Morgan employee told her that monitors in Edmonton didn't notice the leak for hours after it began.
Hobenshield said the company noted the leak just before 7AM and notified agencies at about 8:30AM.
Several Auguston residents said they didn't learn that there was an oil leak until hours or days later.
Resident John Clarke presented some solutions for Kinder Morgan to adopt at the tank farm, which sits at the east end of McKee Road. These include upgrading tanks with electronic monitors and vapour containment, and keeping a foam truck on site to smother fumes of future spills. He suggested signs be put up in the neighbourhood when spills occur and shutting down Auguston elementary when spills happen "to err on the side of caution."
The cause of the leak may have been a failure in a water drainage pipe in one of the six storage tanks at the Sumas Mountain site, but conclusive results won't be known for several weeks, Harden said.
Although the facility is almost 60 years old, the tanks are serviced every five years and completely dismantled every 20 years, according to federal regulations.
