B.C. sour gas pipeline bombed

RCMP say bomb placed along EnCana pipeline

JOSH WINGROVE
Globe and Mail Update
October 14, 2008

A hunter discovered a two-metre-wide crater underneath a British Columbia pipeline Sunday that RCMP believe was caused by a bomb.

The blast was discovered early Sunday morning under an EnCana sour gas pipeline in Northeastern B.C., east of Dawson Creek near the Alberta border, RCMP said yesterday. The blast damaged the pipeline, ripping insulation from the 30-centimetre pipe, but didn’t rupture it. No gas leaked into the remote area.

The bomb was planted right in an area where the pipeline emerges from the ground at a 45-degree angle, RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields said. RCMP believe the suspected device was deliberately planted, meant to damage the pipeline.

The blast appears to have come just after a threatening note was delivered to a small town newspaper in Chetwynd, B.C., west of Dawson Creek. The letter, delivered Saturday, urged local energy companies to pack up and leave the area. Though the affected area was sparsely populated and the damage limited, RCMP are taking the explosion seriously.

“This is a very remote area. There are no people around. Having said that, it is still serious because of the type of gas in the pipe,” Sgt. Shields said.

Police don’t know who might have planted the device, but there is a “significant sentiment” opposing gas and oil developments among the long-tenured members of the rural community, Sgt. Shields said. Dawson Creek Mayor Calvin Kruk said he wasn’t aware of any opposition in his community.

The hunter said he’d passed through the same area a day earlier, and there’d been no crater then, leading police to believe the blast happened late Saturday evening or early Sunday morning.

Several RCMP units are investigating, including the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team. They’re appealing for any witnesses to come forward, and urging workers in the region’s booming oil and gas sector to keep an eye out for potential saboteurs. RCMP investigators will continue to work to figure out what type of device was planted.

“All we have is the crater and we don’t know what type of explosion caused it,” Sgt. Shields said.