EnCana posts $1M reward for pipeline bomber

EnCana Corp. has doubled its reward to $1 million for tips leading to an arrest and prosecution in the bombings that have targeted its natural gas facilities in northeastern B.C.

Alan Boras, a spokesman for theCalgary-basedoil and gas company,saidall EnCana employees and contractors would now be eligible for the reward.

"Previously we had a restriction that employees and contractors were not eligible for the reward. As we thought about it, we looked at it, we determined that we wanted to remove any barriers that may be standing in the way of people coming forward."

EnCana offered a $500,000 reward in January after four bombing attacks along its pipeline southwest of Dawson Creek, B.C., starting last October. The last two bombings in the oil-rich region occurred earlier this month.

RCMP have made no arrests but suspect the bomber is living in the area around Tomslake, 30 kilometres southeast of Dawson Creek.

On July 16, a two-page letter was sent to a newspaper in the town, warning that if EnCana didn't shut down its operations, the bombings would get worse.

RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields said Thursdaypolice are appealing for help because the safety of EnCana employees and the public is at risk.

"We're hoping that with this increased reward of $1 million it will be enough to motivate someone to come forward with either the identity of the suspect or the location of explosives," he said.

Police won't comment on anyone who might be a person of interest, he said.

"We won't be making public the identities or the occupations of anyone who might be a person of interest in this investigation. We have to be very careful that we don't make public exactly what it is that we know. We don't want the suspects to know what our next step might be."

The $1-million reward matches what the RCMP offeredduring the hunt for those responsible for blowing up an Air India flight that killed 329 people. The RCMP offered the Air India reward in May 1995, a decade after Flight 182 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, but the reward moneywas never collected. Only one of three Vancouver-area men charged in connection with placing a suitcase bomb aboard the plane was convicted in the case.