Cenovus Energy spill response crews used jet boats to deploy booms on the Vermilion and North Saskatchewan rivers as part of an emergency training exercise the company held on June 21 and June 22 that simulated a release of crude oil. Supplied Photo
This is how we do it.
That could have been the title of the first-ever two-day emergency training exercise on the North Saskatchewan River by Cenovus Energy to test the readiness of its spill response teams.
The exercise involved a 24-person crew on site with 50 more at the company’s incident command centre in Lloydminster, with commander Michelle Stevenson pulling the levers.
“It’s the first time we’ve done real-time live deployment in conjunction with the Lloyd incident command team and the first time we’ve exercised the integration of all the teams across the Lloydminster groups to help in the response,” said Stevenson, who is also the operations manager.
With just a few hours to go, Stevenson called it a very good learning opportunity for everybody involved.
“All these learnings we’re going to incorporate into the next exercises in how to operate, so it’s been good,” she said during a media tour at the river.
The test took place June 21-22 based on a scenario of a pipeline oil leak into the Vermilion River with control points set up at the Lea Park bridge and the Highway 17 river bridge.
Stevenson says the exercise has to feel like the real deal to have that element of stress and urgency to respond.
“There’s a lot of pressure and we’ve got to get a lot of teams moving. This is where we have to rely on our teams, their knowledge and expertise and a lot of delegation. We’ve got to work as a team,” she said.
Her right-hand lead during the exercise was Kevin Miciak, an emergency management specialist who headed the tactical response and crews at the Hwy. 17 control point.
Right off the bat, he established the first oil containment booms using jet boats at the confluence of the Vermilion and North Saskatchewan rivers at the Lea Park bridge.
“The simulation also included containment and recovery site at this location (Hwy. 17) as well as establishing protection for the water intake for the city water supply,” said Miciak.
“We have a combination of simulated and actual. So yesterday, we contracted a helicopter to come out of Edmonton to fly over the simulated spill as part of the scenario.”
He says that gives the team situational awareness of where any plumes of oil would be headed downstream in a real situation.
There was too much debris on the water on the final day for boats, but Cenovus has nine jet boats, three rapid spill response trailers, a wildlife trailer, a base for rapid response and a large contingent of equipment in Sea-Cans.
They can also tap into resources from Western Canadian Spill Services.
Miciak is part of a four-person tactical team that meets three to four times a year to practise tactical response.
“We get boats in the water and we are able to enhance our skills,” he said.
He says it’s all about improving their timing to get containment equipment in the water and to protect wildlife and people.
Crews also set up bird deterrents at the Hwy. 17 site, including a dummy eagle to keep things realistic.
During an emergency, Stevenson’s crew at the incident command is tasked with identifying the company’s resources at risk, and stakeholders who are impacted and developing response plans for those and the tactics for on-site teams to execute.
The response priorities are life safety, incident stabilization, protecting the environment and managing stakeholders and working with agencies such as the Alberta Energy Regulator and various government ministries.
Spill prevention is also top of mind to avoid a repeat of a pipeline rupture by Husky Energy in 2016 that spilled 225,000 litres of heavy crude oil into the river near Maidstone.
There’s been zero spills since. Cenovus acquired Husky in 2021 with pipeline safety top of mind.
“There’s lots of lessons learned that we’ve built into how we’re doing things now, especially with emergency response and the equipment and the exercises we do in having robust emergency response plans,” said Stevenson.
Cenovus also installs fibre optics in new installations to leverage technology for better leak detection.
“All the alarms come into the command centre which is managed 24/7. We’ve got multi forms of leak detection and they will monitor each one,” said Stevenson.
In addition, all emergency calls will go to the control room.
“Eventually, it will come my way if it’s something we need to manage and we’ll set up this command post on site.
“Everything we do is in support of what’s happening on location,” said Stevenson.
