Saskatchewan city shuts down water intake due to oil slick

Officials said they planned to shut supply intakes if the oil spill reached the community of 14,000 people, which could happen as early as Friday.

But one of the big issues for Brad Wall, a major proponent for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, was the Husky Energy oil spill into the North Saskatchewan River at Maidstone Thursday morning.

The city of North Battleford is downstream and officials there say they are taking precautions and monitoring the drinking water in light of the spill.

A cleanup is underway after blended heavy oil from a pipeline leaked into the North Saskatchewan River near Maidstone.

Husky said the pipeline carries oil from its facilities in the Lloydminster area.

“This is a rare event”.

“We’re going to be able to ensure our residents of safe water throughout this incident”, he said in an interview.

Kotyk said fish and wildlife staff were developing a plan in case wildlife is affected.

“At Sunrise, the reservoir responded very well to the restart of production in June following the Fort McMurray wildfires”, said Rob Peabody, Husky’s chief operating officer, during a conference call on Friday.

Husky has sent an emergency response team to the scene of the spill and berms are being used to contain the oil.

Husky Energy says its thermal oilsands project that was shut down while wildfires swept through the Fort McMurray, Alta., region in May is already back to producing bitumen at its previous level.

Wall also said moving oil by rail also takes a greater toll on the environment by creating more greenhouse gas emissions. “But as far as we are concerned, we just focus on getting on with the job, you know”.

“We’ve got containment of the spill at the release site, which is upstream, so there is no more product being released to the river”.