Sniffer dogs find Husky’s oil on James Smith Cree Nation
After two months of fighting for compensation and acknowledgement, residents of the James Smith Cree Nation are finally starting to see results along the Saskatchewan River.
Using dogs trained to recognize the scent of Husky’s oil, the James Smith Cree Nation finally received confirmation of whose oil plume rolled through its lands.
“Push comes to shove, those dogs were trained for that spill site,” James Smith Cree Nation’s Chief Wally Burns said. “When the dogs came in, the dogs picked up that scent of oil that was upstream from (the) Maidstone area.”
The dogs are part of the Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT). The independent SCAT team maps oil conditions and shoreline types, reports the data and makes recommendations on clean up, according to Shannon Macdonald.