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November 12/2001 Grande Prairie Daily Herald

Patch vandalism back on the rise: MacKay
By Herald-Tribune staff

The recent vandalism at two Alberta Energy Company sites aren't the first incidents of their kind this year, a Beaverlodge Mountie says.

Sgt. Dave MacKay said there have been several acts of vandalism noted by his detachment since January when reports of incidents involving seismic operations in the west end of the County began to surface.

"There's been smashing of technical equipment using a blunt instrument. There's been damaging of metering equipment inside well shacks. There's been valves mysteriously turned on and releases of oil," he said. "It's consistent with the kind of stuff that was going on through 1996 and 1997."

At about 1 a.m. Wednesday, a valve on the casing of a pipe was broken at an AEC sweet gas wellsite, which caused a small leak about two kilometres southwest of Grande Prairie near Range Road 64.

''I can confirm that it appears that it was vandalized," said Grande Prairie RCMP spokeswoman Const. Carol McKinley. "The culprits broke off a one-half-inch valve, causing gas to spew out from the valve.''

No one was hurt and the leak didn't affect residents because the site is away from homes. Damage to the site isn't expected to be significant.

Company crews have since fixed the leak, said AEC spokesman Alan Boras.
In a second incident earlier this week, paper towels were found stuffed into the gas tanks of a bulldozer and a backhoe that were working on an AEC pipeline.

"It doesn't look like they were trying to ignite at this point," McKinley said.

So far, police have no suspects, she said. When asked if this vandalism could be an act of eco-terrorism, she refused to speculate.

Boras wouldn't comment either on whether they have concerns that this could be the start of more eco-terrorism attacks. He said he didn't know if the vandals were eco-terrorists. "It's impossible to tell ...Vandalism at any time is a concern."

There was a time when vandalism was so frequent in the maze of oil-lease roads, wellheads and pipelines in northern Alberta that AEC contributed thousands of dollars to a community crime-prevention fund. But things have been quiet lately.

"We haven't experienced any previous vandalism events this year,'' Boras said.
MacKay said the acts noted since January have generally only been an inconvenience to the industry with the only harm coming to the surrounding environment.

"I really don't know what to think of it because historically there's always been pranksters out there in the rural areas in all of Alberta and how much of this could be related to that and how much could be related to any person with a direct reason to do it, is hard to say."
Meanwhile, county residents are just hoping the AEC incidents are not the work of eco-terrorists. AEC was one of the main targets of a spate of vandalism in the late 1990s.
"We're always concerned about the possibility of another bout of eco-terrorism," said Brian Peterson, chairman of the West County Concerned Citizens' Group.

"It's something we would be nervous about. We don't want to live through it again. One terrorism campaign in your life is enough. Things are (finally) back to normal."
For now, Peterson said the group considers what happened a simple act of vandalism.
The latest two acts of vandalism come a week before the release of convicted oilpatch bomber Wiebo Ludwig. He was convicted in April 2000 on five charges related to bombings and vandalism in the oilpatch near his Trickle Creek farm near Hythe.

Ludwig, 58, believes oilpatch activity near his farm has hurt his family and animals over the years. He was sentenced to 28 months in jail and is scheduled to be released on Nov. 14 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Copyright 2001 Daily Herald-Tribune