Bombings of Canadian pipelines spark ecoterrorism fears

Two explosions in one week cause no injuries, and only minor damage to pipes carrying dangerous hydrogen sulphide gas.

By Arthur Bright

from the October 18, 2008 edition

A second gas pipeline bombing within a week in British Columbia, Canada, has raised worries of ecoterrorism in the region, which suffered a similar series of attacks in the late 1990s.

The Globe and Mail reports that the latest bombing took place near a transfer station owned by energy company EnCana outside Tomslake in northeastern British Colombia, in the same area as another blast that occurred last weekend. Several Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) units, including the antiterrorism unit, are investigating the explosion, which caused only minor damage.

The first attempt to sabotage an EnCana gas pipeline occurred Saturday night, about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, and the RCMP reported that damage from the second blast, at a nearby location, was discovered yesterday morning. ...

While EnCana described the incident yesterday as "a natural gas leak at a field facility," RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields described it as a second sabotage attempt.

"There certainly appears to have been [a bomb]. We have a crater in the ground about four feet across and there is damage to the pipeline. It's dented in. There was also a small leak that was quickly contained by pipeline workers. This is within 20 kilometres of the first incident ... and it has all the earmarks of the first incident," Sgt. Shields said.

"We don't know exactly when it occurred because there were no witnesses who heard the explosion."

The National Post reports that police believe the explosions may be related to a letter sent last week to the Dawson Creek Daily News, which demanded "EnCana and all other oil and gas interests" leave Tomslake. "We will no longer negotiate with terrorists which you are as you keep endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our home lands," the letter said.

The Province reports that at least one expert is calling the explosions acts of terrorism, though police are hesitant to describe them that way, at least for the moment.

"Terrorism means the threat or use of violence to influence policy and that's what is happening here," said [Former Canadian Security Intelligence Service lawyer David ] Harris, director of international and terrorist intelligence for Ottawa-based Insignis Research. ...

RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields said although he is not using the "terrorism" word, "there is no group or individual that we won't look at."

"We are going on the assumption that the two explosions are linked, given their close proximity and the short time line between the delivery of the note" and the two subsequent blasts, said Shields.

John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian thinktank that studies political instability and organized violence issues, told The Vancouver Sun that attacks like these have "happened before and will happen again. It's almost like the price of doing business.... The attacks aren't that dangerous, yet. Pipelines break down for other reasons as well. The oil and gas industry is [accustomed] to 'ecotage' and sabotage of various kinds."

Thompson said the style of the attacks appeared rather "amateurish" and he thinks environmentalists would choose other alternatives first rather than planting explosives. ...

If the people involved are not caught, he said, they are gaining experience that could make them more dangerous in the future.

"They could keep upping the ante. If not caught, they may learn to do something very spectacular, like arrange a sour gas leak, which could be very lethal," he said.

Although the leak was quickly sealed and didn't cause any injuries, sour gas, as natural gas containing sulphur hydroxide is known, is very dangerous to humans, writes the Edmonton Journal.

Dawson Creek Coun. Bud Powell worked in the oilpatch for decades and was once struck by leaked sour gas.

"At first, it smells like rotten eggs, but then you lose your sense of smell. The next thing you know you're numb and you can't physically move."

Whoever is behind the attacks has to understand the great public risk they could create, Powell said. "You'd have to be deranged to try to do this kind of thing."

The National Post notes that the explosions this week are not the first to strike Canada's energy industry. In the 1990s, a series of attacks were made in Alberta, Canada, involving similar threatening letters and bombings. Rancher Wiebo Ludwig was convicted for those attacks and jailed, although he has since been released.

"In the space of two years, there were more than 600 acts of vandal-ism and industrial sabotage, and that was before the bombings – there were as many as six bombings," said Andrew Nikiforuk, who wrote an award-winning book, Saboteurs, detailing the Ludwig story.

Mr. Ludwig did not respond to calls for comment yesterday. A woman who answered his phone said she believes he is in Grande Prairie, Alta. Grande Prairie is 100 kilometres from Tomslake.

"Workers have died from sour gas exposures, landowners have lost cattle and horses – on both sides of the border, sour gas is an issue," Mr. Nikiforuk said. "That doesn't justify terrorism of any kind, but it's interesting that the only terrorism we've had in the oil patch in North America seems to be focused on sour gas development."

Maclean's magazine reported in 1999 that Mr. Ludwig blamed sour gas leaks from pipelines near his home for a variety of ailments his family experienced, including three miscarriages and a stillborn child.