Husky Energy

Saskatchewan's Water Security Agency says the cities of North Battleford, Prince Albert and Melfort can resume taking water from the river.

The Calgary-based company was more than 40 minutes late to a meeting with the James Smith Cree Nation, then told it to wait until Monday for answers on its catastrophic oil spill.

Cleanup of an oil spill along the North Saskatchewan River will be put on hold as water levels are expected to rise by up to two metres in the coming days, a government official said.

A controversial U.S. consulting firm assigned to complete water quality tests. A First Nation whose waters are covered in oil. Husky has dismissed all of it.

The city was left scrambling to find other water sources and footed the bill for two temporary water lines to serve residents.

The early results are in and they confirm a catastrophic oil spill from a Husky Energy pipeline has contaminated the North Saskatchewan River to a point where it could endanger human health.

The auditor’s office said in 2012 that the Ministry of Energy and Resources did not have effective ways to ensure full compliance with laws for pipeline construction and operation.

Prince Albert has been taking water from storm retention ponds, which were topped up Thursday by a rain storm.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall dodged questions about pipeline safety, said we should focus on the response to the Husky spill while iterating that the company should be held financially responsible.

It appears Husky Energy knew something was amiss with one of its oil pipelines about 14 hours before the Saskatchewan government was notified.

Prince Albert gets most of its water from the North Saskatchewan River. Officials are getting ready to shut down the intakes when oil from the leak flows past the city.

Residents of the small western city of North Battleford, Saskatchewan are being asked to cut water consumption as Husky Energy races to clean up as much as 250,000 litres of oil spilled nearby.