Bin explodes near site of previous B.C. pipeline explosions
Explosion near the site of 4 previous still under investigation
Canwest News Service
June 12, 2009
Police probe the site of an earlier explosion targeting a sour-gas well in the B.C. Interior. RCMP confirmed Friday they are investigating an explosion in a large bear-proof garbage bin near Dawson Creek sometime overnight.
Police probe the site of an earlier explosion targeting a sour-gas well in the B.C. Interior. RCMP confirmed Friday they are investigating an explosion in a large bear-proof garbage bin near Dawson Creek sometime overnight.
Photograph by: Handout, Handout
DAWSON CREEK — RCMP said Friday they are investigating an explosion in a large bear-proof garbage bin overnight near the site of four previous EnCana pipeline explosions in northeastern B.C.
However, Const. Brad Sabo says Friday's explosion has not been linked to those previous incidents.
"It resembles the other explosions in no way," Sabo said. "It's on a provincial highway, at a rest stop, in a garbage can. It's not EnCana property and there's no pipelines around."
Sabo said RCMP were called to investigate a loud noise about 25 kilometres south of Dawson Creek on Hwy. 2.
"The explosion took place at a rest stop on the northern side of Hwy. 2," he said. There were no injuries when the garbage bin, measuring about 4 feet by three feet, blew up.
Sabo said it's not known what was used in the explosion.
EnCana's sour-gas line was bombed last Oct. 12, causing a two-metre crater under a pipeline south of the hamlet of Tomslake, about 30 kilometres south of Dawson Creek.
Four days later, another bomb down the road cracked a pipeline and caused a small amount of gas to leak out. A third wellhead was hit and leaked on Oct. 31.
A fourth bomb Jan. 4 blew apart a wall of a shed that housed a sour-gas pipe. The shed was just across the road from a house where a family with two young children live, causing RCMP to label the attacks "increasingly violent."
Following that explosion, RCMP announced a reward of up to $500,000 for information leading to the arrest of the so-called Dawson Creek pipeline bomber.
Dawson Creek is about 580 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
— with files from Edmonton Journal
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