July 22, 2016

The Green Party of Saskatchewan is alarmed to learn of the oil spill caused by a pipeline leak near Maidstone yesterday ( June 21/16 ). News of these all-too-frequent spills is always troubling. Even more troubling is that the City of North Battleford's main water plant was shut down because of the leak. Thankfully the city has a secondary water treatment facility.

In our opinion, Saskatchewan residents have a right to expect a contingency plan and provincial government funding to aid the other communities relying solely on water treatment plants fed from the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers.

We are sure Husky Energy is doing everything in its power to minimize the impact of this noxious discharge of oil into the river. However, the forced shutdown of North Battleford's water plant is evidence of an incomplete containment of the spill. We are calling on the Saskatchewan government to ensure that any and all communities, individuals, farmers and ranchers affected by this spill have access to resources devoted to minimize the spill's impacts.

Green Party leader Shawn Setyo commented, "With our aging infrastructure, we must start moving the province into the coming new energy sector.  We must make sure we do all we can as a province to ensure events like this are eliminated in the future. For now, we join people all across Saskatchewan in hoping there will never be another oil spill to endanger our drinking water."

For further comment Shawn Setyo can be reached at 306 881 4174.