Encana Corporation is facing two charges linked to a sour gas leak in northeastern B.C. almost a year ago, a potentially deadly event that an oil and gas commission report found was badly communicated to area residents.
The B.C. Ministry of Environment has filed charges of introducing business-related waste into the environment and failing to report a spill of a polluting substance.
The charges are linked to an incident when part of an Encana pipeline eroded and leaked toxic hydrogen sulfide gas near Tomslake, 12 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, in November of 2009.
A report released by the Oil and Gas Commission in February found the Calgary-based company was unprepared for the emergency, and that sour gas alarms and emergency shutdown valves did not work properly during the eight-hour incident.
The report also found it took Encana hours to report the leak to residents and by then, many of them were already evacuating and urging their neighbours to do the same.
Sour gas is natural gas that contains toxic hydrogen sulfide, which can be deadly.
No one was hurt in the incident.
Encana vice president of media relations Alan Boras would not comment on the charges Wednesday, but said several steps have been taken to ensure similar leaks don't occur again.
"At the time, we worked promptly to stop the leak," he said in an interview.
"We then worked with the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission to determine the cause and we took numerous steps to learn from this event and to improve our operations and to ensure that this won't happen again."
Among the things Encana has done since to step up safety is to conduct a risk assessment on about 500 well sites to see if similarly-designed wells as the one with the leak are vulnerable to the same problem.
As well, the company has added more hydrogen sulfide detection equipment and set alarms and shut-off valves so they are triggered at lower gas-detection levels, Boras said.
