Someone kicked a hornets nest.....
Just been researching the pipeline water crossings.
Lot's of if's when they mention directional drilling to go under the rivers they cross.
I can tell you one thing they won't use this method for every river.
Water crossings
The current route crosses 773 active watercourses in Alberta and BC, ranging from very small creeks to larger rivers.
Of these crossings, approximately 83 are deemed, by Northern Gateway experts applying DFO guidelines, to be high sensitivity crossings.
Today our pipelines cross hundreds of rivers both large and small, some of which include the Athabasca, Missouri, North and South Saskatchewan, Niagara and St. Claire rivers.
We use a variety of crossing techniques to ensure that our pipelines are safely placed and disturb the environment as little as possible during construction and provide maximum safety while in operation.
Northern Gateway has established a strategic watercourse crossings team to conduct detailed site surveys at difficult crossings to ensure they can be built responsibly and with minimal impacts. Already the pipeline route has been adjusted in some areas to avoid sensitive fisheries habitat and other natural resources.
A number of water crossing techniques will be used and must be approved by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and the National Energy Board. Most of the watercourse crossings are very straightforward. Northern Gateway has established a strategic watercourse crossings team to conduct detailed site surveys at difficult crossings to ensure they can be built responsibly and with minimal impacts.
The following watercourse crossing methods will be used for the Project:
- Open cut
- Diversions
- Isolation methods, including dam and pump, flume, coffer dams and silt curtains
- Trenchless methods, including bore, horizontal directional drilling, aerial and micro-tunneling
In general, the pipeline will be buried deeper under watercourse crossings to provide additional protection. On average the pipeline will have a minimum depth of cover of 0.9 meters (3 feet). At watercourse crossings the pipeline will generally have a minimum depth of cover of about 1.5 meters.
For watercourses that are crossed using horizontal directional drilling, the depth of cover will range from about 30 to 100 meters.
There will be sections of the pipeline that require thicker walls for additional protection. This is usually done for watercourses crossed with horizontal directional drilling. The general pipeline wall thickness will be 14.3 mm. In sections requiring thicker walls, the thickness will range from 19.0 to 23.7 mm.
In Canada and the U.S.,
Enbridge operates the world’s longest and most advanced petroleum and liquids pipeline system. We move more than two million barrels of petroleum products through our pipeline system each day, and we do so according to the highest industry standards for safety and environmental protection.
Well I feel better that DFO will be the ones to give the OK to there river crossings.
NOT
Been on a few river crossings up at slave lake on a 24 inch line.
Yup we used heavy wall tubing but just dug a big azz cut right through and dragged the prewelded pipe in.
Dump the spoil pile on top and we were done.
Will it leak? Nah I don't think so but when you run the pig check the wall thickness for corrosion would you.
GLG