Wednesday afternoon an oil spill occurred ten kilometres southwest of Thorsby.
Ravenwood Energy received a call about the spill at 2:30 pm from a man contracted to mow the grass around the pipeline.
Greenpeace notified Global Wednesday evening, after receiving a tip on the Greenpeace hotline reporting the leak.
The Blatz family lives next door to the pipeline and is very worried about the spill and its ramifications.
“We were upset, very upset. We are concerned about ground water contamination,” says Patrick Blatz.
“Immediately, I was very concerned about our water, and I was concerned that the aquifers got contaminated…especially at first, because we didn’t know what was going on,” adds Gabby Blatz, Patrick’s daughter.
A team was on site by 3:00 pm to start cleaning up. The Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) and a Ravenwood Energy representative say the spill has been contained and crews are on site. They are using vacuum trucks and a backhoe to clean up the spill.
The oil spill was discovered Wednesday afternoon, but the Blatz family says they could smell the oil before it was discovered.
“I’ve been smelling the oil for approximately a week so we’re just concerned about how much has leached into the ground water already,” says Patrick.
“It was kind of a concern that you could smell it in the air and you weren’t sure what would happen because we have animals out here and what would happen if they breathed in all of the fumes coming from the spill,” says Shayla Blatz, another daughter of Patrick.
Shayla says the smell made her nauseous, dizzy and gave her headaches. Patrick even visited the hospital on Wednesday.
David Beckwemert, a representative of Ravenwood Energy, a Calgary-based company, estimates 38 to 40 barrels of oil – or roughly 6360 litres - escaped.
Beckwemert also estimates that 75 to 80 percent of the spill had been cleaned up by Thursday morning. He points out they were lucky because the spill happened in a low lying area.
The company now needs permission from the ERCB to dig up the affected pipe to find out what happened.
Beckwemert says the company did an emergency break line drill three or four weeks ago.
“We should be more careful as we contemplate whether or not we should have more pipelines or not because there could be a lot more contamination in the environment, and I think that the environment should come first,” says Gabby.
The Blatz family is also concerned about Ravenwood Energy because it is the same company that wants to start fracking for natural gas 300 metres from the family’s well.
This is the fourth reported oil spill in Alberta within the last two months.
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2012.