Geotechnical News • December 2019
45
Introduction
Canada’s national election is over.
Trudeau and his Liberals are in with
a minority government and, one
hopes, all parties are rolling up their
sleeves and preparing to move Canada
forward another few years. Central to
the debates leading into the election
was the role of pipelines in Canada.
Pipelines come with real environmen-
tal and safety concerns, and moving
liquids or gas from source to the user
is more complicated than one would
think.
Whether we
should
be reliant on fossil
fuels or not, the evidence is unequivo-
cal that we
are
reliant on oil and gas
and will continue to be so well into the
future. These products cloth us, house
us, are integral to food production,
transportation, heat, infrastructure, and
to manufactured goods from anything
that is made of plastic to high-tech
carbon fiber toys. Sitting here and
looking around my office, virtually
everything is made or partially made
from oil and gas: my mobile phone,
my laptop, chairs, carpet, desk, writing
pad (electronic) and post-it notes. Of
course, there are components of met-
als, glass, wood, paper, and plaster, but
at the end of the day these come with
their own environmental challenges,
and across the board humans have
chosen petrochemicals to meet the
demand for comfort, technology, and
quality of life.
Geohazards can present a real threat
to safe and environmentally sound
pipeline operations. A pipeline is like
a string across a landscape, inevitably
intersecting hazards along its path. In
Canada’s Interior Plains, where the
highest concentration of pipelines
can be found, a geological history of
weak horizontally bedded rock, pre-
sheared and covered by similarly weak
glaciolacustrine sediments primes the
landscape for unusually low angled
landslides that persist for thousands
of years. Similarly, in lands adjacent
to the St. Lawrence seaway, low angle
landslides occur related to emplaced
glaciomarine sediments. Watercourse
crossings present challenges related
to shifting banks, flood scour, and
long-term bed lowering, all of which
can expose pipelines to hydrodynamic
forces. Melting permafrost threatens
the north, and steep slopes threaten the
west.
Despite challenges, and sometimes a
shaky public image, the oil and gas
industry seems determined to advance
the state of knowledge in a man-
ner that allows them to deliver their
product safely to its destination. This
presents a rare opportunity for Cana-
dian geotechnical and hydrotechnical
specialists to exercise their education,
training and experience in a man-
ner that is aligned both with industry
and the national interest regardless of
political or social position.
With respect to geohazards and
pipelines, Canada is a world leader
in understanding the problems and
reducing threats. A few years back, a
colleague of mine living in Vancouver
remarked that Alberta spends more
money on landslide research, inves-
tigation, and mitigation, than any-
where in the rest of Canada. This was
shocking to a room full of landslide
researchers who naturally thought
of the west coast, or perhaps even
Quebec, but I believe he’s correct.
The pipeline industry has never been
more focused on reducing geohazards
as they are today. The challenges to
entry, however, remain high. The tech-
nical nature of geohazards problems,
already complex, is amplified by an
industry that is much more technical
than the public generally knows.
Fortunately, there are a few guidance
documents for prospective engineers,
hydrologists, and geoscientists who
want to make a difference. One of
the better ones, in my opinion, is the
recent release of “Pipeline Geohaz-
ards: Planning, Design, Construction,
and Operations”, edited by Moness
Rizkalla and Rodney Read. Despite
the book being multi-authored, the
editors have done an amazing job of
ensuring consistent writing objectives
and style across more than 800 pages
of text. It reads as a cohesive, com-
prehensive reference. I think that this
topic is so important to the discipline
of geohazards in Canada, I asked them
to provide a summary of the book in
this issue of Geotechnical News. I
hope you enjoy it.
Closing notes
Thank you for your letters! If you
have a paper or project related to
Geohazards that you think would be
interesting to GN readers, please send
me note at
GEOHAZARDS
