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Charges Unlikely in Wake of Mid August Chemical Spill

Thursday, September 12, 2013 @ 3:59 AM
Spill site,  more than 2 weeks after  incident – photo 250News
Prince George, B.C. – The Ministry of the Environment says  it is not considering , at this time,  taking “enforcement” action against the trucking company or driver involved in the chemical spill on the Old Cariboo Highway in mid August.
 
The   single vehicle crash on August 16th, saw a flatbed tractor trailer go off the highway into the ditch, and a bladder of red phenol formaldehyde resin burst, spilling the syrupy liquid into the ditch.  The resin is a synthetic polymer frequently used as an adhesive in plywood and OSB production. 
 
The spill resulted in the closure of a section of the highway for several hours.
 
(at right,  the spill site  the day  after the incident -photo 250News)
 
The Ministry of the Environment says the   responsible party “has been complying with clean up requirements”.   The final disposal options have not yet been determined.
 
The MoE says it does not expect to lay any charges in this matter “because of the satisfactory actions taken to date.”
 
To date, there has been no violation ticket issued under the Motor Vehicle Act.

Comments

People just back home in Calgary today after an evacuation due to a derailment of oil diluters.

Info for NoWay:
Kalamazoo 877,000 US gallons or 3,320,000 liters of oil spilled
Lac Megantic 1,505,780 US gallons or 5,700,000 liters of oil spilled

MMA went broke and has to declare bankruptcy and/or apply for bankruptcy protection over the first 8 million dollars and city/province is doing/paying for the cleaning now, Enbridge is still cleaning having spent over 800 million to date and not bankrupt

Not to mention the horrific loss of lives in Lac Megantic

speaking of Lac Megantic – I see in the news that the tankers contained a product close to gasoline but was marked as the less flammable “crude” oil. It will be interesting to see who changed it and when and why. If I was emergency personnel and responded on the assumption of the product being as labelled and found out it was far more dangerous I would be furious. It may not have changed the resulting disaster but it may have – who knows how the original fire would have been treated if they knew it was that dangerous at the onset of the whole ordeal?

doesn’t matter if by rail, pipe, ocean tanker, truck, airplane, etc. … gov’ts need to be consistent in requiring ALL carriers/owners to carry sufficient insurance, financial and technical resources to cover the expenses and activities of a worst case scenario … passing insurance coverage shortfalls along to taxpayers is UNACCEPTABLE …

if the companies want to receive the rewards then they need to accept the risk … good to hear that in this case the carrier et al is doing the responsible actions … maybe because they are smaller players, they understand corporate responsibility/liability

Sounds good anotherside, so who is going to make them carry sufficient insurance, financial and technical resources to cover the expenses and activities of a worst case scenario? Our Harper Government??? Bah, ha, ha.

Dream on anotherside, dream on!!! Besides, no mention about irreparable damage being done to our environment. All the insurance, financial and technical resources in the world cannot undo the damage being done by an catastrophic oil spill. Just ask the good people of Lac Megantic!!!

So from now on we are all to just sit on our hands and collect welfare until Canada is broke? Resource extraction is where the wealth is, can’t have people on welfare without having someone fund it. If our money is not to come from resource extraction where praytell will it come from? no oil, no mining, you are beginning to sound like the NDP of the 1990s

People #1
By following your logic through, you would have us all walking our highways and using horses and buggies to get to town… after all, automobiles are the number 1 cause of accidental death in North America … so you don’t worry about insurance standards, road safety practices. etc. … your solution would just ban the car … yeh, that would work.

Get real. Canadian industry will continue to transport oil and the Canadian public will continue to use the automobile. In both scenarios, decent safety standards and appropriate insurance can minimize the impact while still realizing the benefits

In the Lac Megantic tragedy, the weakness in the insurance stds are now being exposed (along with numerous safety issues). The railways are already moving more oil than ever. Without appropriate insurance. Kinda like letting your new driver loose with the family car and a $100,000 policy.

If you don’t have faith in the feds to put appropriate insurance stds in place, then maybe you should lobby your provincial and local governments to speak up. Harper’s gang is coming to BC to try to alleviate our concerns.

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