May 6 2015
By Daniel J. Gaeber
..."Operations (click here) on the pipeline were suspended immediately and the incident contained," the NEB said in a statement. "Company cleanup operations began immediately."
The regulator said an undetermined amount of product was released on agricultural land northeast of Calgary.
There was no statement on the incident from TransCanada or provincial regulators. An emergency response system set up by the Alberta government show no active alerts.
The leak comes less than a week after TransCanada joined pipeline companies Enbridge and Kinder Morgan in committing a combined $600,000 to fund laboratory research and field trials to find ways to discover crude oil or other hydrocarbon leaks. Technologies under consideration include infrared camera and other detection systems that are suitable for mounting on light aircraft or helicopters. ...
How long have these companies been pumping oil and gas out of the ground and only now are they convinced they need to be able to detect pipeline leaks before the leak contaminates large amounts of land and water.
It is completely obvious the companies involved are negligent to the public well being and safety.
Don't light a match anywhere near the pond and plants.
...Methane is extremely flammable (click here) and can explode at concentrations between 5% (lower explosive limit) and 15% (upper explosive limit). These concentrations are much lower than the concentrations at which asphyxiant risk is significant. Reportedly, the most violent methane explosions occur at concentrations of about 9%; coal mines are hence kept well ventilated (pumped with fresh air) to maintain methane levels at or below 1%....
The petroleum industry has done nothing to contain the radioactive waste which is everywhere. The area of the tar sands in Canada would first have to be tested for any radioactivity. There is every reason to believe there is significant issues in regard to dumping and leaking such hazards. Trans Canada not only harvests oil sands for an extraction process, the lands left as an open pit also are drilled into by fracking for natural gas extraction.
May 5, 2014
By Tara Lohan
...“Radionuclides (click here) in these wastes are primarily radium-226, radium-228, and radon gas,” reports
the Environmental Protection Agency. “The radon is released to the
atmosphere, while the produced water and mud containing radium are
placed in ponds or pits for evaporation, reuse, or recovery.”
As this article notes, fracking has been used for a long time but never on the scale that exists today. The reason Dr. Avner Vengosh brought this to the attention of "Bloomberg News" is because the toxins from fracking was tolerated well by the environment and human beings as dangers are 'dose related.' In a small operation the toxins would be far less when it entered the environment outside the well. The DOSES in the early days of fracking was minimal to the overall environment.
Today, the DOSES are thousands of times higher by well drilled near urban settings. The petroleum industry never bothered to conduct research regarding hazards and dangers when they launched their drilling spree. The petroleum industry's model for drilling only reacts to problems after the drilling has occurred. The industry believes the less people and the government know about potential toxins and dose related exposure the better off the industry is.
As this article notes, fracking has been used for a long time but never on the scale that exists today. The reason Dr. Avner Vengosh brought this to the attention of "Bloomberg News" is because the toxins from fracking was tolerated well by the environment and human beings as dangers are 'dose related.' In a small operation the toxins would be far less when it entered the environment outside the well. The DOSES in the early days of fracking was minimal to the overall environment.
Today, the DOSES are thousands of times higher by well drilled near urban settings. The petroleum industry never bothered to conduct research regarding hazards and dangers when they launched their drilling spree. The petroleum industry's model for drilling only reacts to problems after the drilling has occurred. The industry believes the less people and the government know about potential toxins and dose related exposure the better off the industry is.
The fact that drilling for oil or gas increases radiation is not news. Avner Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry at Duke University told Bloomberg News
that we’ve know that since the 1970s, but the pace and intensity of
drilling now, combined with the huge amount of wastewater, is taking the
issue to a new level of concern. “We are actually building up a legacy
of radioactivity in hundreds of points where people have had leaks or
spills around the country,” he said....
