THE MICHIGAN

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MICHIGAN’S OIL SPILLOILEILEEN DIVRINGI staff writer

The Spill

On the evening of July 25th, a 30-inch oil pipe-line owned by the Enbridge Energy Partners LLP. ruptured, leaking gallons of crude oil directly into the Talmadge Creek and Kalamazoo River. A com-bination of wind and heavy rains quickly carried oil almost 30 miles downstream on the Kalamazoo River, a tributary of Lake Michigan.

Response from area residents was almost imme-diate – the 911 calls coming into emergency services that night reported a dense smell of natural gas. But, according to the incident report, it wasn’t until 1:33 pm EST the next day that Enbridge officially reported the spill to the National Response Center, a full 12 hours after the first 911 calls had been placed. On the 27th, the EPA stepped in with a legal order under the Clean Water Act directing Enbridge to conduct clean up operations.

Within the next 4 days, residents of 30 to 50 homes in the nearby city of Marshall were advised to evacuate due to the presence of potentially dangerous levels of carcinogenic gases.

Although Enbridge offered to pay the residents’ hotel and travel expenses, they agreed to do so only on a reimbursement basis, meaning families would

have to bear the costs upfront. The evacuation order remained in effect until mid-August.

Clean Up

The spill, now estimated at about 1 million gal-lons of oil, is the largest in Midwest history. The EPA has been authorized to spend up to $21.6 million in federal funds on clean-up efforts, having spent nearly $200,000 per day in the spill’s immediate aftermath.

“Literally chunks of crude were sliding down the river,” recalled Ryan Werder, Political Director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, who toured the affected area shortly after the spill with then-gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero. “The smell was awful, standing over the bridge as it was flowing under there, i quickly got a headache myself. i can’t imagine how the folks who actually live along the river were doing.”

Administrators and clean-up crews from a myr-iad of regulatory agencies descended on the site of the spill over the next few weeks, bringing with them the disorder and jurisdictional toe-stepping typical of such endeavors.

“Having so many entities working towards a similar goal brought to bear a lot of resources, but

also a long of organizational complications.” Werder noted.

“And so, the pipeline was technically overseen by the Department of Transportation, yet the EPA was brought into oversee and DNRE had authority over internal waterways, mixed together with Enbridge’s own liabilities. it’s such a tangled mess that, again, you have to step back from the close up to see that the regulatory structure over these decaying pipelines is insufficient.”

initial clean-up efforts were hampered by the difficulties of working in the affected area, largely a result of soil instability along the river’s banks. it took nearly a week to excavate the ruptured segment of the pipeline. One of the concerns was, as clean up contin-ued, that every time it rained, more of that would just wash back into the river.

Throughout the clean-up process, allegations of Enbridge’s mistreatment of Marshall residents ac-cumulated. Complaints were made that the company was pressuring residents to sign liability waivers in exchange for air purifiers.

Others claimed that the company asked them to sign waivers releasing their medical histories to Enbridge in order to receive medical treatment for oil-spill related illnesses. Finally, some residents have

photo / associated press

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December 6, 2010 7

MICHIGAN’S OIL SPILLOIL

also a long of organizational complications.” Werder noted.

“And so, the pipeline was technically overseen by the Department of Transportation, yet the EPA was brought into oversee and DNRE had authority over internal waterways, mixed together with Enbridge’s own liabilities. it’s such a tangled mess that, again, you have to step back from the close up to see that the regulatory structure over these decaying pipelines is insufficient.”

initial clean-up efforts were hampered by the difficulties of working in the affected area, largely a result of soil instability along the river’s banks. it took nearly a week to excavate the ruptured segment of the pipeline. One of the concerns was, as clean up contin-ued, that every time it rained, more of that would just wash back into the river.

Throughout the clean-up process, allegations of Enbridge’s mistreatment of Marshall residents ac-cumulated. Complaints were made that the company was pressuring residents to sign liability waivers in exchange for air purifiers.

Others claimed that the company asked them to sign waivers releasing their medical histories to Enbridge in order to receive medical treatment for oil-spill related illnesses. Finally, some residents have

stated that Enbridge approached them and offered settlement a mere 72 hours before they were sched-uled to testify in front of the Transportation and infrastructure Committee.

The controversies didn’t end there. The sub-contractor that Enbridge hired for the clean-up, the Texas-based Hallmark industrial LLC, used undocu-mented workers who they neglected to properly certify and allegedly forced into unsafe work environ-ments.

Regulatory Failures

“i never would have imagined that just after Con-gress held hearings on the BP Deep Water Horizon spill and strengthening the Oil Pollution Act, my community would be dealing with oil-coated geese and a river flowing black,” said US Representative Mark Schauer, in his testimony before the House Sub-committee on Energy and Environment following his introduction of the Corporate Liability and Emer-gency Accident Notification (CLEAN) Act.

The CLEAN Act, designed to redefine the federal standard for “immediate” reporting of a spill inci-dent (initially set at up to two hours after the spill is confirmed), passed out of the House of Representa-

tives in late September. it has since floundered in the Senate.

But the issue, it would seem, lies in actually iden-tifying potential problem areas. in 2007, after a series of in-line inspections, Enbridge was informed of 390 defects in its pipeline. Of these, the oil company decided to repair only 61. Moreover, the pipeline that ruptured in Talmadge Creek was not even among the original 390.

“The problem is the lack of caution on the front end,” commented Ann Arbor’s State Representative-elect Jeff irwin. Expressing concern over the potential consequences of this lack of caution, irwin added, “We’ve got pipelines under the straights of Mackinaw. We’ve got pipelines going across to Canada, under Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. What if one of these underwater pipelines were to break? The dam-age from that sort of calamity would be insane, it would be huge.”

And yet there’s no indication that the incoming, more conservative Michigan legislature will be more willing to take the necessary measures to prevent this.

“The problem is that the investment to bring them up to where they need to be is enormous, and with a legislature that continues to vow that they will not look at revenue increases, these pipelines are only

going to decay further,” Werder commented.

Looking Forward

“Something that’s good for Michigan’s environ-ment is going to be good for the state long-term.” asserts Representative-elect irwin, himself an ada-mant supporter of beefing-up pipeline regulation and oversight.

But given the low likelihood of increased envi-ronemntal regulation in the near future at the state or national level, more comprehensive, long-term strate-gies will need to be pursued.

“The thing we need to do, in the big picture sense, is we need to move with steady progress away from relying on these pipelines and from relying on all the coal that we import.” Werder remarked. “These are energy sources that are not native to Michigan, and so we’re going to have to continue to deal with all the hazards involved with their transportation.”

“The Enbridge oil spill is disastrous in its own right, but it’s also emblematic of what’s coming.”

KALAMAZOO’S DISASTROUS OIL SPILL & THE CON-SEQUENCES FOR

THIS STATE.

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photo /bill pugliano / getty images