Meridian Source - June 29, 2023

Wilderness camp teaches outdoor survival skills

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, espe-

cially 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.

MOCK SPILL FROM PAGE 2

Geoff Lee Meridian Source

A group of 48 eager 10-to-13-year-old kids enjoyed a youth outdoor activity day at the Lloydminster and District Fish and Game Association Youth Centre on Saturday. Activities included archery, wilderness camp skills, compass orienteering, pellet gun safety and target shooting.