Pipeline company Plains Midstream fined after guilty plea in Alberta spills

RED DEER, Alta. – A pipeline company has been fined after pleading guilty in two spills that sent nearly five million litres of oil into Alberta rivers and wetlands.

Plains Midstream is to pay a total of $1.3 million for its role in the spills, one of which was the second largest in Alberta history.

In April 2011, a poorly welded and highly stressed section of pipe cracked and leaked about 4.5 million litres of oil into low-lying marshlands near the northern community of Little Buffalo.

In June 2012, about half a million litres of oil flowed from an underwater pipe that had fractured from the pressure of high water flows.

That leak contaminated the Red Deer River all the way into Glennifer Lake, a popular recreational site.

Plains Midstream faced a total of three environmental and fisheries charges.