Enbridge Employees Speak Out

:
"Factual reports on the incident reveal that contrary to Enbridge policy, which stipulates that pipeline operators shut down leaking pipelines within 10 minutes, the company's control centre not only failed to detect a major leak for 17 hours despite repeated alarms, but tried to restart the pipeline twice."


At one point one confused employee informed another Enbridge operator about problems with Line 6B with the line, "Whatever, we're going home and will be off for few days."


UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!
 
This testimony is a classic example of the cause of nearly all industrial disasters. It does not matter what technology, alarms, procedures and processes you have in place. You can never remove failures because of human frailty, arrogance, incompetance and sheer lack of care or sense of responsibility. A disaster with the Northern Gateway pipeline and/or the tankers that move the bitumen is certain....because of people. The captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk in his cabin when the ship hit the rocks - some fool of a person or persons will cause a disaster in BC. It is inevitable because people are fallible!!
 
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The absolute truth, nobody can control human nature. They are not accountable for their actions so why worry?

This testimony is a classic example of the cause of nearly all industril disasters. It does not matter what technology, alarms, procedures and processes you have in place. You can never remove failures because of human frailty, arrogance, incompetance and sheer lack of care or sense of responsibility. A disaster with the Northern Gateway pipeline and/or the tankers that move the bitumen is certain....because of people. The captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk in his cabin when the ship hit the rocks - some fool of a person or persons will cause a disaster in BC. It is inevitable because people are fallible!!
 
The sad truth is these things are built by humans.
With all the safeguards in place they still are a bunch of people that have faults that show up in there work.
Did a project or two with pipeliners and I could not keep up with the party and the booze.
If they had to blow before going to work not a mile of pipeline would be built.
Not all were bad but I sure saw a lot of drunks on the job from the very top to the bottom laborer.
Did a project for a company that had an oil spill out in the bush.
We replace 60 KM of bad pipe with new stuff.
Went to test it and we could not hold pressure.
Sent a pig down and found over 100 cracks in the welds.
Put some stink in the pipe and sent dogs to mark the locations on the right of way.
Took all the info and put it into an excel spread sheet to get exact measurements on the right of way.
Dug up the pipe, in the spots that we calculated with the spreadsheet, and fixed all the cracks.
Did coating inspection on the repair job and I was not a popular guy as I insisted that it be done correctly.
It was a game for them to see what they could get away with and for me to root out their BS.
Got the job done and the pipe passed the pressure test and put into service.
Why did we have so many leaks..... well all I can say is it was darn cold when we built it and the guy's were hung over and wanted to get the heck out of there and back to town. (SOP)
Would I trust a pipeline going over and under salmon streams?
Hell no as I know what happens on a pipeline job.
And that folks is why I'm against this project.
GLG
 
The sad truth is these things are built by humans.
With all the safeguards in place they still are a bunch of people that have faults that show up in there work.
Did a project or two with pipeliners and I could not keep up with the party and the booze.
If they had to blow before going to work not a mile of pipeline would be built.
Not all were bad but I sure saw a lot of drunks on the job from the very top to the bottom laborer.
Did a project for a company that had an oil spill out in the bush.
We replace 60 KM of bad pipe with new stuff.
Went to test it and we could not hold pressure.
Sent a pig down and found over 100 cracks in the welds.
Put some stink in the pipe and sent dogs to mark the locations on the right of way.
Took all the info and put it into an excel spread sheet to get exact measurements on the right of way.
Dug up the pipe, in the spots that we calculated with the spreadsheet, and fixed all the cracks.
Did coating inspection on the repair job and I was not a popular guy as I insisted that it be done correctly.
It was a game for them to see what they could get away with and for me to root out their BS.
Got the job done and the pipe passed the pressure test and put into service.
Why did we have so many leaks..... well all I can say is it was darn cold when we built it and the guy's were hung over and wanted to get the heck out of there and back to town. (SOP)
Would I trust a pipeline going over and under salmon streams?
Hell no as I know what happens on a pipeline job.
And that folks is why I'm against this project.
GLG
Interesting comments. I too have alot of experience in the Alberta oil patch working in construction,maintenance and shutdowns in plants and pipelines ( sweet and sour gas ) sour being very dangerous because of H2S whick can kill you in a heartbeat. My experience has been the opposite of what you describe.Safety is top priority on these jobs.Quality control is top priority. Every weld on pressure piping is UTed and Xrayed.Preheat is mandatory in cold weather conditions to prevent cracking of welds.Most camps are dry now,with drug sniffing dogs making the rounds so the drinking ,drugs and hangovers are slowly,coming to an end.I trust the quality and intergrity that these projects are built by. Human error however is true with anything in lifeThere is always some risk involved with anything we do in life. Crossing the rd ,driving your car or flying in a airplane has risk.Im against these pipelines,because were exporting jobs outside the country.Same as shipping raw logs to China.
 
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