Cities downstream of Husky Energy’s oil spill due to a broken pipeline in July are still being affected by the spill caused by what the company calls a “sudden, one-time event” where a rain-soaked section of riverbank shifted.

Three Saskatchewan communities are being affected by the summer spill, including the City of North Battleford, who is continuing to pipe water in from the neighbouring town of Battleford.

Crews are currently hard at work installing a filtering system to allow some water to be drawn from the North Saskatchewan River, and David Gillan, North Battleford’s director of finance said that North Battleford has a good working relationship with Husky and the energy company’s insurer has paid all costs associated with the spill.

According to Gillan, the city of North Battleford will revert to using the PVC pipeline to the town of Battleford once the spring thaw arrives. He said that the winter and freeze-up change the river dynamics significantly, so it may not be over yet, and officials prefer to err on the side of caution before relying heavily on river water, and they want more water sampling tests to come back clean next spring and summer

Clean-up efforts are continuing at the spill site. Greg Dionne, mayor of Prince Albert, said that Husky has so far been billed approximately $8M and the city is not done yet. Husky estimates it has spent approximately $90 million on the clean-up so far.

Dionne said that the spill occurred in in a river channel that’s controlled and could not understand how Husky could not stop the oil slick from traveling more than 380 kilometres downstream.

Engineers from Stantec stated that the south riverbank in the spill area received more than 95 millimetres of rain nine days prior to the July 21 leak, and that the riverbank was going through a “very slow-moving landslide” when the pipeline carrying oil diluent 50 kilometres east of Lloydminster buckled and broke. Husky committed to upgrading that section with heavier pipe and to install early-warning monitoring systems in the area.

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