Hidden Scourge : McGill-Queen's University Press : 9780228008934 : 022800893X : 06 Oct 2021 : This book began when Kevin Timoney noticed a suspicious pattern in data reported by the Alberta Energy Regulator. For tens of thousands of spills, recovery volumes exactly matched the reported spill volumes. In short, the data were too good to be true. And so began a search for the scientific truth about spills. In western North America crude oil and saline water spills ? both small and large ? occur daily and cause permanent damage to ecosystems that remains largely hidden from public view. Hidden Scourge takes the reader on a journey into a covert world of energy industry spills with environmental incident data from over 100,000 spills in Alberta, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, Montana, and the Northwest Territories. Timoney evaluates the truthfulness of regulatory reporting in light of evidence from peer-reviewed scientific data, original field observations, industrial and government reports,