From: CBCNews
Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News
A CBC News investigation has unearthed a critical report that
the federal regulator effectively buried for several years about a
rupture on a trouble-prone TransCanada natural gas pipeline.
On
July 20, 2009, the Peace River Mainline in northern Alberta exploded,
sending 50-metre-tall flames into the air and razing a two-hectare
wooded area.
Few people ever learned of the rupture — one of the largest in
the past decade — other than the Dene Tha’ First Nation, whose
traditional territory it happened on.
In an early 2011 draft report about
the incident, the National Energy Board criticized TransCanada, the
operator of the line owned by its subsidiary NOVA Gas Transmission, for
“inadequate” field inspections and “ineffective” management.
Final
reports are typically published by the investigative bodies, either the
NEB or the Transportation Safety Board, but this report wasn’t released
until this January when the CBC obtained it through an access-to-information request as part of its ongoing pipelines investigation.
The NEB said the delay was caused by an “administrative error” when an employee left without transferring the file over.
In
a written statement, TransCanada said there's a combination of
construction, coating and soil factors that have required an "active
pipe integrity program" on this pipeline. The company said it instituted
new technologies and new approaches after the rupture that have since
prevented a reoccurrence.
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