A lined containment berm prevented 200,000 litres of crude oil from spilling into Burrard Inlet following a spill at a storage tank on Burnaby Mountain.
A third-party contractor was working at Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby terminal at 10 p.m. Wednesday when an “equipment malfunction” spilled crude oil into a lined, secondary containment dike.
“No product escaped from the site,” said Andrew Galarnyk, Kinder Morgan’s director of external relations.
“There was a pump that the contractor had connected to our tank. It might have been the piping from his pump that failed.
“In no uncertain terms was it a flaw or any kind of leak from our tank.”
The Burnaby terminal stores crude oil and refined oil products that are brought in by pipeline before being sent to local refinerys or tanked to other locations.
First responders and community officials were called as crude was drained from the tank to stop the spill.
Kinder Morgan is monitoring air quality because of the strong odour of crude oil. Firefighters even sprayed foam onto the spill to negate the fumes.
Galarnyk said he expects cleanup to be completed on Friday as pumper trucks move the recovered oil to a different tank.
