Moving shale oil across melting tundra: huge and potentially risky business

When the sun shines directly on the Hudson Bay Railway, the tracks can expand, warp and buckle. Trains have to slow down to 9 miles an hour or even stop. Journeys can be delayed for hours.

At the northern end of the rail line sits the Port of Churchill. It has been barely used over the years and is accumulating rust and leaking oil from its tank farm while the vast, icy expanse of Hudson Bay slowly melts in the background.

Denver-based railway company OmniTRAX Inc. is planning to ship more than 330,000 barrels of light crude oil along the railway to the port for shipment to Europe.

Churchill residents and others familiar with the treacherous northern Manitoba terrain are nervous about the enterprise, however, even with the prospect of oil riches flowing into this isolated and job-hungry town.

The peatland, essentially 13 feet of frozen peat moss topped with 16 inches of permafrost that seasonally thaws and refreezes, is melting.

And one of the pipelines is cracked, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the facility’s current state. The compromised section, a double-walled fiberglass portion that runs underground beneath a slipway in the port, was breached at least a year ago…

Click here to read the full article.

• ← Proposed LNG exports spark controversy in British Columbia
• Starting then Stopping Geoengineering Could Dangerously Accelerate Climate Change →