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Police said they believe the attack is meant as a threat intended to drive oil and gas companies out of the area.

The attack came after letters were sent to local media demanding that oil and gas companies leave the district.

The latest bombing, which was discovered by workers Thursday morning in a remote area outside Dawson Creek, B.C., occurred at a natural gas pipeline owned by EnCana. Police said it was not clear when the blast occurred.

The first blast – also on a sour gas pipeline owned by EnCana Corp. – was discovered on Oct. 12. Police said they believe the two attacks are linked. In both cases, the pipelines were damaged but did not rupture.

RCMP said the second explosion in a “remote and isolated area” caused a small leak in the pipeline, quickly contained by technicians.

“We don’t know if it was an individual or a group of people. We do know there appears to be a motive for it, which is to get oil and gas companies to cease operations and move out of the area,” said RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields.

The latest bombing took place off Highway 2, about 500 metres from the Alberta border. RCMP said the blast left a crater in the ground beneath the pipeline, which carries sour gas – natural gas tainted with toxic hydrogen sulphide.

Had the pipeline ruptured, RCMP said they would have been bracing for the worst.

“We’re certainly operating on the assumption that it would leak,” said Sgt. Tim Shields, RCMP spokesman.

The Dawson Creek Daily News reported that on Oct. 10, it received a letter in a small white envelope with no return address. The letter was handwritten in large print on a sheet of unlined paper.

“We will not negotiate with terrorists which you are as you keep on endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our home lands,” read part of the letter.

It set a deadline of Oct. 11 for “EnCana and all other oil and gas interests” to close down operations near the community of Tomslake (referred to as “Tom’s Lake” in the letter), and made specific reference to the Steep Rock Plant, a $60-million natural gas project.

In a hastily arranged news conference Thursday, EnCana spokesman Alan Boras said everyone at the company is very concerned.

“These events are very rare. There’s been nothing like this in our company’s history,” he said.

Speaking in Calgary, Boras said the company never received any threatening letters directly.

Boras said damage from the blast was discovered by two electricians who heard a hissing noise coming from the pipeline while doing routine work.

Although almost 30 people living in the area were notified of the leak, Boras said it was an isolated spot and there was never any threat to human health before that section of the pipeline was shut down.

“There was no danger to the public,” he said. “This is rural bush country.”

He added that EnCana has increased security and surveillance in the area, but would not go into details.

Boras said the pipeline carries a relatively small amount of gas, 40 to 50 million cubic feet a day. Company officials occasionally have heard concerns from local residents about sour gas facilities, he said, adding “we work very hard to maintain favourable relations.”

The first explosive device was detonated on a pipeline 50 kilometres east of Dawson Creek. The blast crater was discovered by a hunter Sunday.

Dawson Creek Coun. Paul Gevatkoff, who is one of the city’s oil and gas industry liaisons, said the attacks are dangerous and frustrating for a region dependent on such development.

“This really is an act of terrorism. There’s no other description for it,” he said. “Whoever is behind it, they are trying to terrorize the industry.”

About a quarter of the residents in the area are employed either directly or indirectly by oil and gas companies, he said.

Gevatkoff said he’s not concerned that the attacks will cause oil and gas companies to flee the region.

“It’s more worrisome that it could cause injuries or fatalities,” he said. “If one of these things explodes, it could result in fires.

“That’s what’s more worrisome. I really hope that industry would deal with it . . . as opposed to running from it.”

“Of course we’re worried about it. You’d have to be stupid not to be worried about it,” said Barb, an employee at Dawson Creek’s Silvers Pub. She would not provide her last name.

“It’s scary that people are so accessible to explosives. It’s not a good thing.

“Especially right now with the mess the economy of the world is in, people are hungry and angry. I think the trouble has just begun and I think there’s going to be a whole lot of it.”

Shields said RCMP are looking into possible connections to a wave of “eco-terrorism” in the Peace Country from 1995 to 1998 that is often associated with farmer Wiebo Ludwig, a longtime activist who claimed sour-gas wells adversely affect human health.

Ludwig was released from prison in 2001 after serving two-thirds of a 28-month sentence for five charges related to oilpatch bombing and vandalism.

“It’s something that we will be examining,” Shields said.

The RCMP is asking oil and gas workers in the area to remain extra-vigilant and be on the lookout for any suspicious activity.

No information has been released on the type of explosive used.

Some recent incidents of plots against, and attacks on, industry infrastructure in Canada:

* Oct. 11, 2008

Bomb explosion at an EnCana sour gas pipeline near Dawson Creek, B.C. There was a crater underneath but the pipe was not damaged.

* December 2000

Alfred Heinz Reumayr of New Westminster, B.C., is arrested for plotting to plant 14 bombs along the Trans-Alaska pipeline on the eve of the millennium in 1999. He eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 13 years in American prison in 2008.

* August 1998

Wiebo Ludwig is charged for an explosion at a Suncor oil well near Hinton, Alta., in August. In 2000 he was convicted and sentenced to 28 months in jail.

* 1997