Oil Company Will Cover Cleanup Costs: Alberta

The burst Rainbow pipeline covered nearby forests and ponds in oil, and may have caused illnesses in a nearby community.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach ripped on the oil company whose pipeline burst last week in the northwest of the province, leaking 4.4 million litres of oil near a remote First Nations community. Stelmach said he'd make sure that Plains Midstream Canada, which operates the 775-kilometre-long Rainbow pipeline, covers all of the cleanup costs and assures residents of the Little Buffalo First Nation that the line is safe. The spill was the largest in Alberta in more than three decades, and led people living in Little Buffalo, about 14 kilometres away from the leak, to complain of dizziness and nausea caused by fumes. The spill has blanketed an eight-acre swath of land, its spread only being stopped by a beaver dam.