Natural gas restored in northwestern Alberta community, more outages feared
'If we get a -30 spell for a week or so, we're right back in the same situation'
The state of local emergency has been lifted in Mackenzie County, but fears remain that another cold snap could freeze could cause a pressure drop on the region's natural gas grid and once again leave its residents without heat.
"Yes, the alert is over right now and we are being told right now by the supplier that we do have sufficient gas," Peter Braun, the county's reeve, told CBC News on Thursday. "But if we get a –30 spell for a week or so, we're right back in the same situation."
- Northern Alberta county under state of emergency due to natural gas disruption
- State of emergency continues in Mackenzie County, gripped by extreme cold and natural gas disruptions
The prolonged cold snap at the end of December caused pressure to plummet along the natural gas grid that supplies the county, triggering outages affecting the 11,000 people in the region.
Last Friday, Mackenzie County declared a local state of emergency. From Saturday afternoon through Thursday morning, four natural gas trucks were feeding into the pipeline system that connects to the region's single set of natural gas wells.
With the exception of businesses providing basics, like groceries and gasoline, the region was shut down.
On Thursday morning, temperatures climbed to around –15 C in the northwestern corner of the province, and the local state of emergency was ended. Larger stores and offices, as well as the county's two major sawmills, were told they could resume operations.
"A lot more of the wells came back on and now we're at full pressure," Braun said.
"People can go back to work and heat their homes and their shops and everything else."
Ongoing problems
This isn't the first time that Mackenzie County has struggled with its single natural gas line, said Braun, who has been reeve for the three months but has sat on council for the past 15 years.
This has been an ongoing issue and we need to continue working hard to fix the problem.- Reeve Peter Braun
"This has been an ongoing issue and we need to continue working hard to fix the problem," he said. "It's not going to go away until we get another secondary supply line in from the south."
Braun said council started talking about it five years ago when problems started to arise.
"Some of [the problems] were starting at that point in time, but they've progressively gotten worse over the past couple of years," he said.
"For the past three winters, there have been natural gas shortages," he added. Last year's was due to a valve malfunction.
Braun said he's seen estimates that adding a second line would cost about $30 million.
Representatives from the county will be meeting with the provincial minister of agriculture and forestry on Jan. 16.
"We're hoping that we can get some help from the province and try to move this thing forward," Braun said. "We need it very immediately — within the next year if at all possible. That is the goal."
In the meantime, Northern Lights Gas Co-op is working on a short-term solution to mitigate against the cold weather that involves continually pumping a higher level of pressure into the existing line, the reeve said.