Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The fam­i­ly that was af­fect­ed the most by the re­cent oil spill in Fyz­abad was re­peat­ed­ly con­tact­ed by Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um in 2022 to de­sist from con­struct­ing a garage over the com­pa­ny’s pipeline, around the pipeline’s clear­ly marked right of way.

Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who con­firmed this yes­ter­day, is now urg­ing Her­itage to stop peo­ple from build­ing struc­tures on top of its pipelines in an un­law­ful man­ner.

Im­bert in­di­cat­ed this in the Sen­ate on be­half of En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, in re­sponse UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s queries on the oil spill in Fyz­abad.

Fol­low­ing re­ports of a rup­tured Her­itage oil pipeline re­sult­ing in a ma­jor oil spill and the emer­gency evac­u­a­tion of four Fyz­abad fam­i­lies, Mark asked about mea­sures to treat with the sit­u­a­tion and pre­vent fu­ture oc­cur­rences.

Im­bert replied based on in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Her­itage.

He said, “At ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.40 pm on Sun­day 14th May 2023, Her­itage re­spond­ed to an oil leak ob­served on the Her­itage Pipeline right of way in Mas­sa­hood Vil­lage, Fyz­abad. The leaks were em­a­nat­ing from the 16-inch Trunk Oil Pipeline.

“This is an in-ser­vice pipeline. The leak was lo­cat­ed be­low a garage that was con­struct­ed by the own­er be­tween two hous­es, over the pipelines on the right of way. The leaks were iso­lat­ed and re­paired with­in hours.”

Im­bert con­tin­ued, “The fam­i­lies that were im­pact­ed - ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 per­sons - have all been re­lo­cat­ed to Paria Suites Ho­tel. The in­ten­tion is for Her­itage to pro­vide for all as­pects of their ac­com­mo­da­tion and care un­til the clean-up ac­tiv­i­ties have been com­plet­ed and the en­vi­ron­ment is safe.

“It is note­wor­thy that the fam­i­ly which was af­fect­ed the most was re­peat­ed­ly con­tact­ed by Her­itage dur­ing 2022 to de­sist from con­struct­ing a struc­ture over the pipeline, around the pipeline’s clear­ly de­mar­cat­ed right of way.

“To treat the oil spill, Her­itage has pumped down the line and re­paired the leaks. The line will sub­se­quent­ly be hy­drotest­ed to de­ter­mine fit­ness for ser­vice.”

Im­bert said that this cross-is­land pipeline net­work, which in some places is over 30 years old, is over 80, 000 kilo­me­tres in length.

“A full pipeline in­spec­tion and re­place­ment pro­gramme has been on­go­ing for the last two years and will be con­tin­u­ing un­til com­plet­ed. Some 800,000 feet of pipeline has al­ready been in­spect­ed and over 50,000 feet of pipeline has been re­placed,” Im­bert added.

“In­spec­tion of the above-ground pipeline is much eas­i­er to ex­e­cute and very ad­vanced us­ing Non-de­struc­tive Test­ing (NDT) tech­niques. But un­der­ground pipelines can on­ly be in­spect­ed by ex­ca­va­tion. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult when per­sons have built struc­tures over the pipeline.”

Im­bert said Her­itage’s In­ci­dent Man­age­ment Team re­mains on­site and con­tin­ues to man­age the re­sponse. Sev­er­al crews are on site deal­ing with the clean-up, he said. The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and the En­er­gy Min­istry have been in­formed. Up­dates will con­tin­ue to be pro­vid­ed, as re­quired.

On mea­sures to avoid a re­cur­rence of such an in­ci­dent, Im­bert said he has urged Her­itage to crack down on such ac­tiv­i­ty.

“As I in­di­cat­ed, in this par­tic­u­lar case, the res­i­dents con­struct­ed a garage on top of the pipeline. In all of these sit­u­a­tions, one has to bal­ance the rule of law with the ef­fect on the com­mu­ni­ty. But I’d urge Her­itage in the fu­ture to do their best to stop any per­son who is build­ing a prop­er­ty or a struc­ture on top of a pipeline in an un­law­ful man­ner.”