Fear, suspicion plague northeast B.C. community after pipeline bombings

Residents in and around Tomslake, B.C., say months of tension and suspicion about pipeline bombings have driven a wedge between people in the community.

Local resident Tom Dean and his family have been caught in the crossfire. Dean’s farm is just across the road from the latest explosion at an EnCana Corp. natural gas facility.


On Jan. 4, someone set explosives and destroyed a building on the property, the fourth explosion at an EnCana facility in northeastern B.C. since October.

It was late at night, no one heard anything and no one was hurt.

There was no damage to the pipeline that runs underneath Dean’s farm, but he said the incident left his family shaken.

“To be honest, when the police visited us, I didn’t know what to think. My first reaction was, ‘I’m not surprised.’” Dean said.

“Then, as the days went on, I started getting madder and madder and madder. I’d sure like to think that someone in my community wouldn’t have put my mother-in-law; my father-in-law; and my wife, my two children and myself in the kind of jeopardy that we’re seeing.”

CBC