Enbridge says they are willing to adopt into evidence and discuss a hypothetical map showing a potential for a spill into Stuart Lake.
Local resident Kelly Izzard filed a motion with the Enbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel to include as late evidence a map of a potential spill into Stuart Lake given a full bore rupture into Pitka Creek.
Should the panel adopt the motion, the map would then be a topic intervenors the review process (Izzard is a registered intervenor) could then question Enbridge on at the final hearings in Prince George.
The map was produced by Enbridge in response to questioning by Kelly Izzard at a technical meeting late last year in Fort St. James, but was so far not included as part of evidence for the review.
The hypothetical full bore rupture map shows the potential for such a large spill to go into Pitka Creek, flow downstream and into Stuart Lake.
The map is based on hypothetical 13-minute valve closures by Northern Gateway from the response centre in Edmonton.
Enbridge, for their part, said valve closures should take place sooner than 13 minutes, and would more likely be in the five minute range when they did the analysis.
"We believe under a realistic scenario, it would never reach the lake," said Paul Stanway, Enbridge spokesperson. "From our point of view, these are situations we don't believe would happen because the engineering design work that we're putting into this would mitigate heavily against those things happening."
So far, the review panel has only ruled they will consider the motion in conjunction with one filed by the Haisla Nation which requested all of the hypothetical full bore rupture maps along the route be included in the review.
The full bore rupture maps requested for inclusion by the Haisla Nation were reply evidence submitted to the panel at the panel's request, but this does not necessarily mean they will be included in the panel's final consideration of evidence.
"That's entirely up to the JRP," said Stanway.
The panel will now allow Northern Gateway to respond to the motion by Sept.10, and Izzard and the Haisla Nation may file comments up until Sept. 14.
Stanway said Northern Gateway would be filing a letter to the effect they are willing to adopt the map as evidence later today (Sept. 6).