Odds of an Oil Spill

"Here's what he found, crunching Enbridge's own data:

The mathematical chance of an oil spill at sea is 18.1 per cent. The mathematical chance of a spill of up to 10,000 litres at the Kitimat terminal is 47.8 per cent and of a spill of up to a million litres is 15.6 per cent.

There is a 30.8-per-cent chance of a spill of up to a million litres in the southern Alberta uplands section of the pipeline route and a 34.5-per-cent chance of a similar spill in B.C.'s Interior Plateau.

"Using the appropriate mathematical formula, the probability that at least one of the locations will experience a medium-sized [up to a mil-lion litres] leak or spill over the 50-year proposed project is 77.54 per cent. Combining everything, the risk of one or more medium or large spills over the 50 years is about 87 per cent," Marsh observes."