Aggressive protesters who tried to halt sour-gas production in northeastern British Columbia by planting bombs at four industry sites eluded capture. But the anonymous guerrillas also lost their war.

Development of hazardous natural gas reserves, laced with lethal hydrogen sulphide, will continue and likely increase in B.C. as a result of a spring ruling by the National Energy Board. The decision approved construction of a new sour gas pipeline called Redwillow from wells in the Grizzly Valley region near Dawson Creek, where the violence erupted around the farming and ranching community of Tomslake, to a processing plant near Wapiti in northern Alberta.

The $151-million line will carry about 80 million cubic feet per day of raw gas with hydrogen sulphide content of up to 30 per cent across 150 kilometers of remote and often rugged terrain.

If hydrogen sulphide leaks out, public health and workplace safety agencies rate it as dangerous in atmospheric concentrations of less than one per cent. Unlike another impurity expected to form up to 15 per cent of the cargo in the Redwillow line, carbon dio-xide, hydrogen sulphide kills by attacking the nervous system rather than smothering. In dangerous doses, the invisible toxic gas almost immediately destroys the sense of smell, eliminating accident victims’ ability to detect the substance’s trademark rotten-eggs odor.

The NEB held hearings on the Redwillow project last Oct. 28-31 in Dawson Creek, the starting point of the Alaska Highway. Three of the bombings, done by unknown protesters who declared they were fighting sour gas in an unsigned note sent to a northern B.C. newspaper, were discovered at remote industry facilities around Tomslake in the Dawson Creek region last Oct. 12, 15 and 31. A fourth bomb exploded on Jan. 5, after a flurry of international media attention and an investigation by a national anti-terrorism squad of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. There were no injuries or big leaks of gas steeped in hydrogen sulphide, although all the target facilities handle the material.

On Jan. 13, EnCana Corp., supported by the RCMP plus local and provincial government leaders, posted a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the bombers. The explosions stopped. But three months later, no suspects had been caught.

Following initial investigations, police said the attacks were likely the work of residents in the remote area rather than international terrorists. Finding and reaching the scenes of the bombings requires local knowledge and back-country skills, officials said.

Although northeastern B.C. and neighboring northwestern Alberta rely heavily on resource production for conventional livelihoods, the region is studded with pockets of fiercely independent back-country lifestyles led by rugged individualists or zealous communal groups who are famous for being close-knit, secretive and wary of outsiders. The project’s location also required it to establish contact with 22 aboriginal First Nations communities, although only two formally intervened in the case to register opposition against the pipeline or demand special consideration.

But there was no shortage of objections against shipping raw sour gas a long distance across northern B.C. for processing in Alberta. Local governments stepped into the fray.

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