Refining safety

>> Petro-Canada, its locked out workers and
the government are all concerned about
the corporation’s Montreal refinery

AT RISK? Petro-Canada refinery

by SAMER ELATRASH

Quebec Labour Minister David Whissell is defending a workplace safety commission report that says a five-month-long lockout of 260 workers at Petro-Canada’s Montreal refinery has not affected safety at the plant. The report, submitted to the government in February, came under fire last week from the Parti Québécois and Canada’s largest energy workers union, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP), which represents the locked-out workers. Camil Bouchard, MNA for Vachon and PQ environment critic, says the commission only interviewed management at the refinery.

“It’s very blunt,” he says. “[The report says], ‘We have met with the director of operations, and this is what he said. And we met with [other employees] and here’s what they said.’ But the employees in question are part of management staff.” Whissell says he took the unusual step of asking the workplace safety commission to conduct an inspection in January, two months after Petro-Canada locked out the workers when they voted for a strike. The commission’s report “is very impartial,” he says.

“They have inspectors there. They have the competence to look and to write the conclusion and sign at the bottom of the page. I don’t know where [Bouchard] wanted to go [with his criticisms]. We want to be sure that security is there, but we need experience to have a judgment.” Bouchard says the increasingly bitter labour dispute at the refinery may have led the commission to soften its report. “[Whissell told me], ‘You know, the inspectors have been very careful in writing up the report because it is a very delicate negotiating situation.’ The only thing I said is when the inspectors wrote the report... [they] took the time to ensure information in the report would not be in opposition or in interaction with the negotiations” and the union’s case before the labour commission, says Whissell.

GETTING BITTER: Locked out CEP workers

Scabs and leaks

Quebec’s labour commission has already issued two injunctions against 12 replacement workers at the refinery, one of them issued as recently as March 31. The latest injunction prompted a renewed investigation by the workplace safety commission, which will submit its findings this week, says commission spokeswoman Alexandra Reny. The CEP says the lockout has increased the risk of an accident at the plant. The union says management brought in replacement workers with little training, and who work 12-hour shifts for six days on end, to fill in for the unionized workers. “It’s an accident waiting to happen,” CEP spokesman Daniel Cloutier says. The CEP says it has recorded two incidents at the refinery, a fire in January and a leak of naphtha (a volatile chemical used in refining oil) on December 23 that were inefficiently handled by replacement workers and management. Petro-Canada says the refinery has operated at maximum capacity since the lockout and that its current workers have adequate training. Petro-Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier says the fire was minor, and put out with an extinguisher, and he says the naphtha leak was in fact a sour water leak, which contains hydro sulfides that set off the alarm. In a recording of radio communications in the refinery on December 23, workers can be heard reporting a sour water leak before saying the leak was from another pump, which the union says contained naphtha. In the recording, workers could be heard saying they were closing valves to pipes containing naphtha. Pelletier says the recording may have shown confusion from some of the emergency respondents.

Tunnel vision

Petro-Canada’s 1.3-kilometre tunnel, connecting the refinery to the port, has also been criticized as a potential safety and environmental risk. A well informed source, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of repercussions, says the leak detection system which the Environment Ministry demanded to be installed before it approved the $27-million project in 2001 has failed several tests, most recently a test conducted last November by engineering firm GCM Consultants. Pelletier says there is a backup system in place, and that Petro-Canada is “looking at opportunities to take corrective measures.” A February 2008 assessment by a Quebec environment inspector said the other tunnel detectors, such as oxygen and gas detectors, were working but the flow-measurement transmitters—which detect leaks when pipes are flowing and which have only been placed on two of the four pipes—had failed. Petro-Canada has proposed installing gas detectors, which have a limited range of detection, every 50 metres in the tunnel. Currently, the tunnel has two detectors at each end. Pierre Robert, environment ministry director for Montreal-Laval, says the ministry is considering the proposal, already approved by the city of Montreal. Robert says the ministry conducted three inspections since the lockout and found Petro-Canada was in compliance with safety regulations. Robert says he does not consider the absence of flow detectors a “major risk to public safety.”

Negotiations between the union and Petro Canada will resume on April 25.