Failed fitting caused 190,000 litre spill at Trans Mountain site in B.C.

A Transportation Safety Board report says the failureof a fitting on a section of narrow tubing at a Trans Mountain pumping station in British Columbia was the cause of a crude oilspill last year.

The investigation report into the spill on June 12, 2020, at theTrans MountainSumas pump station in Abbotsford confirms as much as190,000 litres of crude, roughly 1,200 barrels, leaked when thefitting separated on the one-inch tube.

A board report released Tuesday says tests show the compressionfitting was not properly tightened when it was installed in 2015 ona tube that carries a small amount of oil to a section of the pumpstation for analysis.

The pipeline was shut down within an hour of the spill at TransMountain's control centre in Edmonton, but the report says it tookanother four hours to find and manually close valves to the tube,spilling oil into a culvert, the water table and a neighbouringagricultural field.

No one was hurt and no evacuation was ordered, but the safetyboard report says a "multi-year remediation plan'' will be neededto recover contaminants in the area surrounding the pump station.

Trans Mountain's post-spill improvements include remotelyoperated closure valves and a lined containment area around theabove-ground tubes, along with development of a system to check thecondition of existing tubing systems.

A safety message at the end of the report says it's "important''that pipeline companies inspect tubing systems to ensure properinstallation.

"In the event of an unplanned product release, it is essentialthat station [remote shutdown] and isolation systems be properlyconfigured to minimize the quantity of the release,'' the reportsays.

It also says secondary containment systems, such as the oil-waterseparator that was overwhelmed at the Sumas pump station, "musthave a means of isolation in order to prevent any off-site migrationof the released product.''

Many of the upgrades planned for the Sumas pump station areexpected to be complete by this summer, the reportsays.