Workers survey the area to try to clean up an oil spill of approximately 800,000 gallons of crude oil from the Kalamazoo River July 28, 2010 in Marshall, Michigan. Photograph by: Bill Pugliano , Getty Images

OTTAWA — Canada's federal energy regulator is defending its decision to keep Canadians in the dark about safety concerns with two major oil and gas pipelines. The concerns prompted the regulator to order pressure reductions on both lines last October, which are still in effect today.

The National Energy Board intervened in the operations of the two pipelines, owned by Enbridge and Trans-Northern, that travel through Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton and other regions in Western Canada. This came after a major rupture in Michigan involving another pipeline owned by Enbridge, which resulted in more than three million litres of crude oil leaking into the state's Kalamazoo River.

The Trans-Northern pipeline, which mainly transports gasoline, also suffered a series of smaller leaks in Quebec and Ontario in 2010, and was urged to demonstrate better maintenance practices in order to be able to resume full operations.

Board spokeswoman Stacey Squires said the regulator was not withholding the information — released by Natural Resources Canada through an access to information request — to protect the companies involved. "It's not to protect industry; it just hasn't been the practice," she said.

She also distanced herself from comments made one day earlier by her colleague, spokeswoman Carole Leger-Kubeczek, who had said the board was "not equipped" to post safety decisions "in terms of resources." Squires said it was not a question of resources, but that it would be "very labour-intensive and require a lot of time" to provide all the information, including audits and inspections, regarding a company.

When asked if the Board would be able to at least publicly post information on its website about decisions on matters of safety and leaks, she suggested this might happen in future.

"All of our information is available to the public at any time, upon request," said Squires. "(But) as a matter of fact, we do recognize that public interest in this type of information . . . is increasing and we're currently looking at ways to respond to that increased interest."

The details about the orders restricting activity on the pipelines were only made public through an access request made by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin.

NDP natural resources critic Romeo Saganash praised the board for taking action on the matter of the pipelines' safety, but urged it to consider being more transparent about aging infrastructure.

"It shows the system isn't totally perfect, so we must improve it," said Saganash, the MP for Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou in northern Quebec. "In this sense, we must ensure that this type of report is made public each time."

mdesouza@postmedia.com

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