4,500 litres of gas did spill in Charlottetown Petro-Canada incident, consultant finds

About 4,500 litres of gasoline spilled into the soil near a Charlottetown Petro-Canada station last August, documents released in response to a freedom of information request show.

Initial reports about the spill were confusing.

The station's operator told the province on Aug. 31, 2022, that 4,500 litres of gas had gone missing, leading one provincial official whose emails appeared in the documents released to the media to reply: "Yikes. OK. Keep me posted." The province later confirmed to local media that it had received a report about that amount of product having possibly leaked. 

However, Petro-Canada owner Suncor Energy then said it had found no evidence that any fuel had been released amid speculation about a possible malfunction of measuring equipment. 

An independent consultant brought in to investigate eventually determined that 5,000 litres of gas had indeed spilled from an underground tank at the station, located at the corner of Belvedere and University avenues. 

The consultant, Joose Environmental Consulting Inc. of North Wiltshire, said in a report last October about 500 litres of that was captured by a secondary sump in the tank farm area under the ground, and was recovered.

The rest of the gasoline wasn't. After boreholes were dug, traces of hydrocarbons were detected in the soil and groundwater as far away as a pizza restaurant across the street from the gas station. 

The report said 61.8 per cent of that fuel — amounting to 3,090 litres — had been recovered as of Oct. 24, adding that "the daily checks and remediation have not identified any detectable level of product … at the Blaze Pizza property." 

A mobile vacuum extraction system was brought in from Saint John, N.B., on Sept. 12 to recover gas from the soil and clean traces from the groundwater.

It operated until mid-December before having to stop work for the winter. 

No danger to city water

Provincial environment officials said a spill like this would pose no risk to drinking water because the City of Charlottetown relies on a central water system. It's fed by a series of wells within the Winter River watershed. 

"The water and sewer utility routinely analyzes samples at the water source and throughout the distribution system; to date, there has been no indication that the source or system has been affected," a city spokesperson said in an email to CBC on Friday. 

"Source wells are located far from the incident area and the city has every confidence in our provincial partners' expertise to address environmental matters."

CBC News reached out to Suncor for comment on the information contained in the documents, but did not hear back.

Company sought 'alignment'

As a result of the freedom of information request, P.E.I.'s Environment Department also released email correspondence between it and Suncor in which the company expressed concerns over how the spill was being reported in the media.

"All the information we have at this time… does not indicate that any product has been released into the ground," a Suncor spokesperson said in one of those emails, dated Sept. 7.

The spokesperson said Suncor would like to "get some alignment" between the company and the province "so there's accuracy, consistency and clarity in the information being shared with the public."