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An RCMP van blocked the gravel road going past an EnCana transfer station near Dawson Creek, B.C., as investigators scoured a pipeline site Thursday searching for clues to the second apparent sabotage within a week to target the company's operations.

The site, in an area where horses graze amid trees and gas flares stand out against the sky, is home to one of many EnCana operations in the area and seems an unlikely battleground.

But RCMP said on Thursday the attack bore all the hallmarks of a previous incident.

The latest occurrence ruptured a pipeline in northeastern British Columbia, causing the escape of dangerous hydrogen sulphide gas and raising tensions in a region where intense resource activity is under way.

The first attempt to sabotage an EnCana gas pipeline occurred Saturday night, about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, and the RCMP reported that damage from the second blast, at a nearby location, was discovered Thursday morning.

Several police units, including the RCMP's terrorist squad, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, are investigating the two attacks.

While EnCana described the incident Thursday as “a natural gas leak at a field facility,” RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields described it as a second sabotage attempt.

“There certainly appears to have been [a bomb]. We have a crater in the ground about four feet across and there is damage to the pipeline. It's dented in. There was also a small leak that was quickly contained by pipeline workers. This is within 20 kilometres of the first incident … and it has all the earmarks of the first incident,” Sgt. Shields said.

“We don't know exactly when it occurred because there were no witnesses who heard the explosion.”

The first blast blew a similar hole in the dirt and damaged, but did not breach, the pipeline.

Sgt. Shields noted that both lines were carrying sour gas, which contains hydrogen sulphide, a potentially lethal gas that can drift several kilometres.

In a statement, EnCana said the second incident was discovered by company workers who, since the weekend, have been on the alert for any suspicious activity in the area.

“The facility was quickly shut down and the leak was stopped once the line was depressurized,” the company said. “The amount of gas that leaked was very small and it did not present any danger to employees or the public. The natural gas contained a very small percentage of hydrogen sulphide, about 0.07 per cent. There were no injuries and residents were notified of the event.”

The company said police were immediately notified. “EnCana's primary focus is on the safety of employees, workers and the residents in and around our facilities,” the statement said.

The attacks on the gas lines came shortly after a small-town publication, the Coffee Talk Express, in Chetwynd, received a letter warning oil and gas companies to stop production and leave the area by noon Saturday. The letter did not contain any specific threats, but referred to the oil and gas industry as “terrorists … endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells.”

The Peace River area has been the focus of intense oil and gas activity for the past several years, with BP Canada planning to drill 132 new wells near Kelly Lake and the building of EnCana's $60-million Steep Rock gas plant in 2006. Along with all this activity has come growing concerns voiced by area residents.

Landowners near the hamlet of Tomslake, 28 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, protested on a gas-industry access road this summer, and the Kelly Lake Cree Nation blockaded a road for two days to underline their safety concerns.

Iva Tuttle, a retired rancher in Tomslake Valley, said a lot of people are upset over how rapidly the gas industry has been drilling sour gas wells in the area – but she couldn't imagine any of her neighbours sabotaging a pipeline.

“There is worry but I don't think they are going to go out and do something like this,” she said of the two bomb attacks. “I think somebody's boiled over. And you know what? It surprised me.

“I've never had somebody come up and say I want to blow up a line or, you know, it needs to be blown up. The people I deal with … know the risk of what could happen if something would go wrong. I can understand frustration. I can understand anger … But to do something like that is really stupid because you are only endangering your neighbours.”

At the Tomslake General Store, patrons shook their heads over the event, saying that the attacks show a lack of regard for people in the region.

“There's been a lot of concern about pipelines being close to residential areas and schools,” said long-time resident Bonnie Brait, voicing common concerns about the release of hydrogen sulphide gas. “If you have a leak, and the big pipeline is right across the road, you don't have a hope.”

Another resident, Rick Site, said he and his wife have their home up for sale, in part because the area has become too busy as a result of oil and gas activity. A member of the volunteer fire department, he recalls an incident last summer when people had to be evacuated from an area across the highway from the home where he lives with his wife and two young children.

In summer months, the noise of nearby rigs was so loud, he kept his windows closed most of the time. But the main reason he's moving, he said, is because his home has become too small for his family.

One of many local people who rely on the industry for his livelihood, he says any person who would attack or sabotage a pipeline is “going overboard.”

“You may not like everything you see, but that's not a way to go about changing it,” he said.