Failure to verify the accuracy of 1957 design drawings indicating the location of a crude oil pipeline in Burnaby led to a contractor’s excavator bucket causing a massive rupture.

That oversight is among a series of errors revealed in a federal transportation safety board report Wednesday into the dramatic July 24, 2007, spill of 234 cubic metres of crude oil on Inlet Drive.

The board found that no one determined ahead of time that the drawings were inaccurate; rather than running in a straight line, the 610-millimetre-wide pipeline actually snaked its way to the Westridge terminal.

The pipeline — owned by Trans Mountain Pipeline, but operated by Kinder Morgan Canada Inc. — ruptured at 12:31 p.m. during digging of a parallel trench for a new City of Burnaby storm sewer line on Inlet Drive.

The 1957 design drawings showed a “constant offset of 8.5 metres from the east property line of Inlet Drive” but in fact the offset varied between four and almost 10 metres, the board found.

It was assumed by all parties that the sewer line would maintain a distance of 2.8 metres from the oil pipeline.

The report said that Burnaby and Kinder Morgan signed an agreement allowing for the sewer construction that required in part for a Kinder Morgan inspector to verify the depth and location of the 4.1-km pipeline, which delivers crude oil from above-ground tanks to tankers at Westridge dock.

A Kinder Morgan inspector using a radio-detection hand-held pipeline locator verified the location of the oil pipeline along only about a 30-metre stretch on July 16, 2007.

The contractor did not ask for a greater area of the pipeline to be checked, and the inspector did not offer to do more, even though an alignment discrepancy had been noted between the 1957 drawings and another construction drawing from previous work.

The report also found that "inadequate communication" within Kinder Morgan and between Kinder Morgan and the consultant and contractor on the project resulted in "no common understanding or acceptance of the project work plan and the contractor's construction schedule."

Burnaby hired B. Cusano Contracting Inc. and engineering consultant R.F. Binnie & Associates Ltd. for the job. Failure to accurately locate the pipeline prior to construction, failure to hold an on-site pre-construction meeting, and failure to supervise construction activities represented violations of the National Energy Board Pipeline Crossing Regulations.

The board found that the amount of oil released was greater than necessary because the flow was cut off to a tanker after the rupture and “was not in conformity with standard emergency shutdown procedures.”

Crude oil spewed up to 15 metres in the air for about 25 minutes before the oil flow was stopped, affecting 50 homes and properties and the waters of Burrard Inlet.

Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada, said in response from Calgary that the company’s control operator should not be faulted for shutting off the oil flow to the tanker first, a decision meant to protect Burrard Inlet but which had the effect of increasing pressure up the line.

He added the federal report should have taken a tougher stance on Cusano for not following the terms of an agreement with Kinder Morgan that included three days’ notice before digging. Cusano declined to comment on the report.

Anderson said the spill has cost his company in the tens of millions of dollars and that he expects the issue of liability to be argued in a civil case in B.C. Supreme Court in 2010.

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said Kinder Morgan’s actions are to blame for the magnitude of the spill in a residential community.

“There is an expectation on Kinder Morgan ... to protect the integrity of the pipeline,” he said. “They are given a special privilege to put these pipelines through residential communities.”

The report said 210 cubic metres of oil were recovered. There was no explosion or fire and no injuries in the rupture, although several people were sprayed with oil. About 250 residents voluntarily left their homes.

lpynn@vancouversun.com

lpynn@vancouversun.com