Fortunately for Viking residents and the area’s wildlife, it appears that this accident was contained before it became a full-blown disaster like the one in Arkansas: even so, around 600 gallons of oil are estimated to have contaminated the area. The line that burst goes by the boring-by-design name “Line 2,” but the adjoining “Alberta Clipper” pipeline is also a crucial element of this story. DeSmogBlog has more:

The Viking pump station also receives oil from the Alberta Clipper (aka Line 67 pipeline) that carries heavy crude oil and tar sands bitumen from the Alberta tar sands region south from Hardisty to Superior, Wisconsin and refineries in the midwestern United States. It is unclear whether the product that spilled was tar sands-derived diluted bitumen.

Animal rehabilitation workers clean oil from a goose’s wings after the 2010 Enbridge spill (Photo: US Fish & Wildlife Service/MI DNRE)

The Alberta Clipper is already enormous — carrying nearly 20 million gallons daily to Midwest refineries — but it’s currently under review for a truly giant expansion that would double its capacity and make it the biggest tar sands pipeline in the United States. That’s right — bigger than Keystone 1, Keystone XL, or the Northeast pipeline, capable of pumping 37 million gallons of tar sands oil every day through the Great Lakes region.

You may be asking yourself, “Enbridge, huh? Why is that name so familiar?” Let’s just say this isn’t the company’s first brush with fame: while producing our report Importing Disaster, we discovered that Enbridge was responsible for more than 800 spills in the US and Canada between 1999 and 2010, totaling almost seven million gallons of oil. The biggest of these, of course, was the Kalamazoo River disaster in 2010, when a pipeline linked to the Alberta Clipper burst and sent over a million gallons of tar sands coursing through the community of Marshall, Michigan. That cleanup effort has taken almost three years and nearly a billion dollars, but the Environmental Protection Agency says that it’s still not finished and recently told Enbridge to get back to work to dredge more oil out of the river.

As NWF’s Beth Wallace has detailed, Enbridge isn’t particularly interested in improving its safety record:

Rather than focus on safety and cleanup, Enbridge is recklessly moving ahead with plans to expand their pipeline network in the Great Lakes region and the Northeast, and to double down on high carbon fuel that is proving nearly impossible to clean from Michigan’s waters.

With this latest leak on their resume, it’s fair to ask what more the company can do to earn anything but a slap on the wrist. A good first step would be for the US State Department (the agency in charge of the Alberta Clipper permit) to broaden their study to Enbridge’s entire Great Lakes pipeline system, because expanding Alberta Clipper means that whole system will be exposed to a massive increase in oil volumes — and with it, an even higher chance of disaster.

Hundreds of species were imperiled the last time an Enbridge pipeline burst in the Great Lakes, and we can’t afford a repeat. Speak up for wildlife threatened by Enbridge’s Midwest expansion plans — tell the State Department to stop Alberta Clipper!

Learn more about the Enbridge pipeline boom at NWF.org.

fails to reflect the full environmental impacts of the proposed pipeline. We strongly encourage the State Department to reevaluate the SEIS and its assessment of the proposed pipeline’s impacts on climate change, our natural resources, our economy, and low-income and minority communities.

This is no surprise to anyone who follows this blog (I know you’re out there) and it echoes official comments from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released yesterday, that cast serious doubt on the State Department’s analysis and the future of the project. EPA concluded that State had failed to meaningfully consider multiple factors, foremost among them the climate impacts and spill risks posed by the 1,700 mile tar sands pipeline.

It’s hard to ignore 50,000 protesters in your front yard — and dozens of members of Congress were obviously paying attention (Photo: Josh Lopez/350.org)

>>>Read the full letter from Congress here

A Million Voices Against KXL

It’s not just agencies and members of Congress who think the tar sands pipeline is a bad idea. Capping off the outpouring of opposition, National Wildlife Federation and other groups just delivered over a million comments from the public, telling the Obama Administration “reject the pipeline!” NWF’s Robyn Carmichael has more — and as she puts it, the comments “came from Americans from all across the country and all walks of life, but they carried one common message: that this risky and unnecessary project puts our wildlife, water, land, and communities in jeopardy.”

Thank you to the tens of thousands of NWF members (and many others) who have spoken up for people and wildlife during this rollercoaster campaign. The public comment period for the environmental review is over, but there will be more opportunities to help so stay tuned!

Your donations make a big difference in our efforts to protect wildlife from habitat loss and the effects of global warming.

To learn more about Keystone XL and how you can help, visit NWF.org/tarsands

Exxon crews try to control and clean-up tar sands oil in Arkansas

Last week, the Exxon pipeline burst near Mayflower, Ark., flooding wetlands and neighborhoods with toxic tar sands dilbit. The pipeline is more than 70 years old and Exxon was recently fined for failing to perform regular maintenance on the line. Very little is known about what’s actually happening, but recent aerial footage has given light to a much bigger problem for this community and Exxon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

NWF has been saying for years that the oil industry is not applying lessons learned from the Enbridge tar sands disaster and this Exxon spill proves that point unbelievably:

• Exxon had to be told that their tar sands pipeline broke as a river of tar sands oil flowed in and around homes and wetlands. Exxon is still working to stop the flow of oil from reaching nearby Lake Conway, which also happens to be the water resources for the nearby communities. Similarly, Enbridge had to be told about their million gallon spill – that tar sands spill went unreported for almost 17 hours and impacted nearly 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River! A State of Emergency was issued by the governor of Michigan to bring in resources to prevent the oil from hitting Lake Michigan.
• Exxon seems to be grossly underestimating the amount of tar sands spilled: they originally reported only 80,000 gallons spilled, but now that figure is closer to 400,000 gallons. Judging by the photos and videos, I would guess the figure will continue to rise. Enbridge also underestimated the original spill amounts, which is still under debate to this day. Enbridge also estimated the clean-up would take weeks, which has now turning into years. This is the same story Exxon is selling to the media and their failure to face the facts continues to cause major delays in the cleanup, which will only continue to impact the communities and wildlife negatively.
• Because of these low spill figures, Exxon has been allowed to get away with a pathetic response and responders are not showing signs of using spill equipment that accounts for the fact that this oil will sink in the wetlands and water impacted. It took Enbridge months to admit that the tar sands heavy crude sank in the river and wetlands, and by that time all the damage had been done. Because response to tar sands spills is much harder and much more expansive, I am guessing that Exxon will continue to try and hide the facts. Enbridge and the EPA are still trying to figure out how to clean-up tar sands oil submerged in the Kalamazoo River.
• Wildlife response is incredibly lacking and continues to be limited by Exxon — due to their potential liability. One group that has stood up in the face of this disaster is Helping Arkansas Wildlife Kritters. We want to thank them for their leadership in response. However, it appears that an Exxon contractor will soon take over all wildlife response efforts. We hope that federal agencies will also step in to ensure that response is being handled properly. It took Enbridge nearly two weeks to have their wildlife center in full gear. In those two weeks, local rescues along the Kalamazoo River tried to take matters into their own hands, but were quickly shut down because Enbridge considered their wildlife response a liability. My heart breaks for the wildlife and people that continue to be impacted.
  

  Tar sands heavy crude, from an Exxon pipeline, overtakes an Arkansas creek

• Transparency is nowhere to be found – leaving impacted residents confused and angry. Exxon has evacuated between 20-40 families and I have a feeling the evacuation zone could increase. It is critical to get people and wildlife out of the impacted area as quickly as possible because the benzene (part of the diluents used to transport tar sands through pipelines) is at unsafe concentrations in the days immediately following a release. Benzene is considered a carcinogen. Enbridge had major delays, but ended up evacuating homes within a few hundred feet of the Kalamazoo River because exposure to the chemicals was a major concern. Because of confusion and delays in those evacuations, over 300 people reported having health issues related to exposure to the tar sands crude. Ultimately, Enbridge ended up buying around 150 homes from families living along the Kalamazoo River because contamination was so widespread.

For almost 3 years now, many people (including myself) have been fighting to try and get the oil industry, our regulators and lawmakers to pay attention to the lessons learned from the Enbridge Kalamazoo River disaster – so it never happens again. The Exxon spill proves (again) that the focus for oil companies and pipeline operators is only on profits and not on the safety of our communities, wildlife and resources. Enbridge has also argued that the Kalamazoo River disaster was a rare situation. With not even three years between this spill and the Enbridge spill, I think we can safely say this is a precursor for what’s to come if we continue to allow the tar sands industry to expand.

It is inexcusable that our regulators let Exxon operate this incredibly old pipeline to transport tar sands crude. It is inexcusable that our regulators and decision makers are allowing any tar sands pipeline projects to move forward without proper spill response plans. And it is inexcusable for our lawmakers not to demand safety over oil profits.

What will it take for us to change? Last week, the National Wildlife Federation, through the filing of a rulemaking petition, lead a coalition of concerned citizens and organizations by called for a moratorium on tar sands pipelines projects and expansions until the EPA and PHMSA create tar sands pipeline regulations that account for these issues – and many more. Please help support this effort by contacting those agencies and speaking up for wildlife and those impacted by this latest disaster.

NWF photo – rescued turtle covered in tar sands oil from the Kalamazoo River

The large problem for Enbridge is that they can’t hide from the real-life facts. Enbridge has the best (and worst) “study” right here in the Kalamazoo River, where they spilled around a million gallons of tar sands crude into Michigan waters. This spill has proven the exact opposite: tar sands oil sinks in fresh water! 

This is not a little white lie: the fact that tar sands oil sinks in water is one of the biggest problems facing the industry and pipeline operators, proving that any spill of any kind into water is devastating, toxic and impossible to clean-up. The hundreds of acres of submerged oil in the Kalamazoo River — that Enbridge can’t clean up — is case and point!

Steep Learning Curve for Tar Sands Spills

Michigan journalist Fritz Klug wrote about this very point almost two years ago:

“At minimum, we’re writing a chapter in the oil spill cleanup book on how to identify submerged oil,” [EPA incident commander Ralph] Dollhopf said. “We’re writing chapters on how it behaves once it does spill (and) how to recover it.”

What the EPA didn’t expect at the beginning of the spill last July was how much time they would spend extracting the heavier oil submerged in the bottom of the Kalamazoo River.

“In a situation where we don’t have to be concerned with submerged oil, then we clean up the oil on the surface and be done,” Dollhopf said.

This past fall, the EPA issued Enbridge another work order to address the hundreds of acres of submerged oil, but Enbridge is dismissing that order because they have no idea how to remove the oil from the bottom of the river without causing extreme habitat destruction.

When a tar sands pipeline spill occurs, all readily available equipment used to clean-up oil will only address oil floating on the surface of water. So, for any pipeline operator to say they know how to properly clean up tar sands crude — this is a flat out lie.

Again, this point is extremely important considering the flood of tar sands pipeline projects hitting the U.S.

Enbridge tries to control the migration of submerged oil at Marrow Lake, along the Kalamazoo River. EPA photo

Lawmakers in the Dark

Taking this a step further, the lack of acknowledgment by our decision makers and congressional members is a little shocking. Our leaders should be demanding that regulators and pipeline operators make immediate changes to spill response plans to address this very issue, and no tar sands pipelines should be expanded or constructed until issues like this are fully addressed. This should have been an outcry immediately following Enbridge’s spill — especially considering tar sands crude is already running through many pipelines that travel in and around the Great Lakes, which are the freshwater drinking source for millions or people and habitat for countless wildlife. 

In fact, many members of Congress are ignoring the facts and trying to streamline massive tar sands pipeline projects, like Keystone XL, which will expose millions to the risk of spills and drive development in Canada’s tar sands region, one of the biggest threats to our global climate.

We are allowing Enbridge to cover up the facts with propaganda, which will continue to allow the industry to expand plans for transporting tar sands oil through some of the most sensitive areas in the world.

Contact your lawmakers and tell them you are sick of industry distorting the facts, which continues to put our communities, resources and wildlife at risk.

The Port of Houston — the endpoint of the Keystone XL pipeline — is a major diesel export center (Photo: Louis Vest)

Sometimes it’s easiest to let the opposition speak for themselves, so here’s what our “friendly neighbors to the north” really hope to gain from their pipeline:

I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that.

Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister – February 10, 2012

Well, not all of it’s going to be exported.

Lee Terry, U.S. Congressman – February 7, 2013

For Alberta, the strategic imperative is that we get our products to the ocean, so that we secure global prices for our products. The solutions are additional pipelines to the West Coast, to the East Coast, to the Gulf Coast, and also train-car delivery of bitumen and oil products to the coast.

Ken Hughes, Alberta Energy Minister – January 3, 2013

We have a duty to ensure that our resources, especially Alberta oil and gas, get to new markets at a much fairer price. We absolutely must find ways to get Alberta oil to multiple customers around the world and get a competitive price.

Alison Redford, Alberta Premier – January 24, 2013

Any effort to restrict market forces on commodities like oil and natural gas is a North Korean style model of economics and has no place here in America. Having the flexibility to export more should there be an occasional surplus of supply would go a long way to help reduce our trade deficit.

John Felmy, American Petroleum Institute Chief Economist – February 3, 2012

Long term, our strategy has always been to get Canadian heavy crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Bill Klesse, Valero CEO and Chairman (Valero is a major refiner contracting for Keystone XL) – March 10, 2011

“Main products [of Valero’s Port Arthur, TX hydrocracker project] are high-quality diesel and jet fuel for growing global demand for middle distillates” and it is “Located at large, Gulf coast refinery to leverage existing operations and export logistics.”

Protesters march on the National Mall during February’s “Forward on Climate” rally (Photo: 350.org)

Valero investor report slideshow – September 15, 2012

Is it all going to be used in the U.S. by U.S. consumers? No. Most of it will be, but it will be available for export.

Charles Drevna, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers President – January 31, 2012

 “No, I can’t do that.”

Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s President for Energy and Oil Pipelines (Response to Rep. Ed Markey’s question of whether he would support an export ban on Keystone XL’s refined products.)– December 2, 2011

Shippers on the Keystone XL Pipeline have contracted for access to the [US Gulf Coast] market for their oil sands production and refining needs. Not only will this directly benefit these shippers, it will also provide a benefit to all [Western Canadian] heavy crude producers by increasing the price they receive for their crude, as well as providing significant pipeline capacity to an alternative market.^[x]

A handler holds aloft Phil the groundhog during festivities in Punxsutawney, PA. (Photo: SchultzLabs/flickr)

What does any of this have to do with wildlife? Well, besides the obvious Punxsutawney Phil reference (he’s the “official” groundhog) it’s a pretty good analogy for what’s going on with the Keystone XL pipeline because, once again, Congress is trying to short-circuit environmental reviews and build the [dang] thing. This time, our old buddies Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) and Rep. Lee Terry (R-Nebraska) are introducing yet another pair of bills in Congress that would mandate construction of the 2,000 mile tar sands pipeline, skipping over President Obama and giving a big gift to the oil industry.

If at first you don’t succeed…

These bills mark at least the sixth (and seventh) attempts by Congress to cram Keystone XL down our throats, joining legislation pushed by:

• Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) – January 2012
• Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) – January 2012
• Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) – December 2011
• Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN), Hoeven and Vitter (again)- November 2011
• Rep. Terry (again)- May 2011

All of these bills started from the same basic premise: “We’ve studied Keystone enough! Let’s put it in the ground!” This is a truly terrible premise to start from, considering the inadequacy of the studies that have been performed to date — we don’t even have comprehensive information on how much the project would raise global climate emissions, which is like rating Bill Murray’s career based solely on the awful fever dream that was the “Garfield” movie. (And speaking of career ratings, my favorite sentence of the year has to be this gem from Public Policy Polling, which found that “Congress is now less popular than root canals, NFL replacement referees, head lice, the rock band Nickelback, colonoscopies, carnies, traffic jams, cockroaches, Donald Trump, France, Genghis Khan, used-car salesmen and Brussel sprouts.)

Tar sands industrial complex in Alberta, Canada (Photo: Kris Krug)

Now, nobody is shocked that Sen. Vitter and Rep. Terry are pushing pro-Big Oil policies; it’s sort of what they’re known for. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating, because Congress keeps resurrecting the issue despite Americans’ desire to move toward a clean energy economy — in fact, a recent voter poll from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication shows overwhelming support across the political spectrum for renewables like wind and solar, as well as the belief that the government needs to act to combat the climate crisis.

President Obama understands what’s at stake, if you take his inaugural address at face value:

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.

It would be hard to put it any stronger, and a lot of people have been asking what that means for his decision on Keystone, which will go a long way toward shaping Obama’s climate legacy. This decision is way beyond mere symbolism: the oil industry is desperate for pipelines to export tar sands to new markets, so Keystone really is a huge factor in how fast and how large Canadian mining operations will grow.

Tens of thousands expected at massive climate rally

If Keystone XL gets built, we won’t need Punxsutawney Phil to predict the weather for us in years to come: the project would lock us into a bleak future of escalating oil consumption, degraded habitat, and a climate that is hotter and less hospitable for people and wildlife around the globe. We need Obama to stand up to Big Oil and their friends in Congress, by saying NO to the Keystone pipeline. JOIN US on February 17th to protect wildlife from climate change, when tens of thousands of Americans will rally at the White House in Washington, DC to protest tar sands and demand action on climate. RSVP HERE!

You can help! Tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL and dirty tar sands oil.

Santa’s sleigh doesn’t run on oil, it’s powered by Rudolph and his friends! Santa’s reindeer and their cousins, the woodland caribou, are in danger and need your help! Up in Alberta, Canada caribou are being threatened by the tar sands industry and humans rapid expansion into caribou habitat.  This dirty industry is responsible for dangerous projects like Keystone XL pipeline & other pipelines across the country. Alberta’s government reported that  caribou populations are in serious decline and measures need to be taken to save this iconic and important species (I mean, seriously, how can you not save the red-nosed Rudolph?). This comes on the hooves of Alberta’s 5-year wolf-killing program as its main approach to caribou management, which has already seen more than 500 wolves killed.

Why We Should Save Caribou:

1. Dasher
2. Dancer
3. Prancer
4. Vixen
5. Comet
6. Cupid
7. Donner
8. Blitzen
9. Rudolph

While Santa’s making his list and checking it twice, his reindeer are on thin ice. We need to take action now so kids can grow up knowing that their reindeer are protected against the folks, who quite frankly, deserve a lump of coal in their stocking this year! Take action to protect caribou and other wildlife from dangerous tar sands development!

Activists carry a 500-foot inflated “pipeline” at the head of the crowd (Photo: Avelino Maestas/NWF)

Often, inside the Beltway, it can be hard to separate the noise and chatter out from what what Americans really care about, and Keystone XL definitely falls into that category. The oil industry has spent years fabricating a series of myths around the pipeline: that it will boost U.S. energy security, for example, or take a big bite out of the unemployment rate, or that it’s an environmentally safe project. None of those are true, of course, but they somehow gave Congress the idea that Keystone would be a great idea, and put President Obama in between a rock (Big Oil and their bottomless wallets) and a hard place (the coalition of conservationists, tribes, and landowners who oppose the pipeline).

Photo: Peter LaFontaine/NWF

Last week we told you why we think President Obama will make the right call and stand strong against tar sands, but it’s crucial that we don’t turn the volume down yet. Already, groups are planning another rally for Presidents Day (February 18th) so keep an eye out for more information soon…Because who knows? Maybe your voice will be the one that scraps this project once and for all. Even better, the NFL season will be over by then so I won’t have to choose between pizza celery and keeping the world safe for people and wildlife.

Stand up against tar sands! Tell President Obama to say “NO!” to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Photo: Elvert Barnes

Only, last I checked, that hasn’t happened yet. We will hear the White House’s decision in a few short months, and here are five reasons why the country should expect a much different outcome:

1. The industry and its supporters have been wrong before

Pundits have long assumed that this pipeline was a done deal, but conventional wisdom isn’t the same as insight. Around this time last year, National Journal magazine polled “energy insiders” to see whether they thought KXL would get rubber stamped. More than 70% of these experts (I use the term loosely) said it would be approved before 2012, characterized by this sentiment:

“They’ve delayed it for a year to appease Big Green, but they will issue the permit in 2011.”

A month later, right before the massive, 12,000 person anti-KXL rally at the White House, the drumbeat was the same:

For the Obama administration, having an answer to high [gas] prices will be much more important in 2012 than it is today,” Kevin Book. managing director at the research firm ClearView Energy Partners, told CNN Money. ”We think it will get approved.”

We’re pretty close to throwing out those 2012 calendars and the pipeline still hasn’t been approved. Just sayin’.

2. Keystone XL has become a political liability

Opposition to tar sands is strong—and getting stronger (Photo: Lauri Gorham)

Asked to pick the highest priority to help solve America’s energy challenges, twice as many voters select renewable energy like wind and solar power (38 percent) than any other choice. Independents favor wind and solar over fossil fuels by a 4-to-1 margin – 48 percent pick renewable energy while just 12 percent select the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and only 11 percent prioritize more oil and gas drilling on America’s public lands.

A lot of this is due to Hurricane Sandy, which was a real wake-up call to a nation that had put climate change on the back burner for a couple of years. In an article for Forbes after the release of the poll, John Zogby noted the widespread and growing concern about extreme weather:

These results show the dramatic impact 2012′s extreme weather has had across party lines, with half of Republicans, 73 percent of independents and 82 percent of Democrats saying they’re worried about the growing cost and risks of extreme weather disasters fueled by climate change.

Corporate polluters have been shouting for a while that “Americans want this project!” and so the NWF/Zogby poll may sound like a big shift in public opinion,but it’s important to recognize what these studies measure and what they don’t. The NWF/Zogby poll took into account the basic fact that we can’t have a healthy planet and more tar sands; we need to choose one or the other. Previous polls only asked “should Obama approve KXL?” and didn’t put it in the context of a choice, or weigh how strongly people felt about the issue.

Although plenty of members of Congress still plug up their ears when you talk about about global warming, the Hurricane Sandy and this summer’s drought have helped create a a new political landscape—one where extremely polluting projects like KXL are unpopular and politically risky.

3. Big Oil bet big and lost

During the election, the fossil fuel industry and its allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to defeat pro-environment incumbents and replace them with politicians who would maintain the pro-polluter status quo. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that firing Obama was their top priority, given the progress his administration made on things like stronger mileage standards for cars and trucks. They might as well have lit that money on fire, for all the good it did them: Mitt Romney (“I’ll approve Keystone on Day One”) lost and, as my colleague Joe Mendelson describes, Big Oil’s hand-picked Senate candidates lost nearly every race despite shattering fundraising marks.

Obama and moderates in Congress owe the oil industry no favors.

4. We don’t need Keystone XL—and we can’t afford it.

If you read my last article, you learned that the United States is already a net exporter of refined oil products like gasoline, and pipelines like KXL are intended to send oil overseas, too. Tar sands companies aren’t interested in lowering your gas bill (quite the opposite, actually) but they are interested in getting more oil out of the ground and keeping their profits rolling in. Meanwhile, the rest of us pay a steep price.

A glimpse of the future? Hurricane Sandy caused massive coastal flooding on Long Island and elsewhere. (Photo: DVIDSHUB)

Consider this: the giant international insurance company Munich Re says that climate change is “one of the greatest risks facing mankind” and estimates that extreme weather events like Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina cost North Americans over a trillion dollars since 1980. We know that climate change worsens these events, and we know that burning tar sands (or any fossil fuel) worsens climate change, so essentially when we use tar sands oil we’re raising our own taxes and insurance premiums, even if it’s not reflected in your gas bill.

Why should we pick up the tab for oil companies?

5. The next generation needs him (and us) to protect their future

Photo: David Katz/Obama For America

The President, like most fathers, cares more about the two people in the middle of this photo than he does about anything else—and that’s the most important reason he’ll reject the Keystone XL pipeline. He knows that, at its core, this is a choice about what kind of world we want to leave to our children and grandchildren, and one that has a right answer and a wrong one.

Make your voice count! Tell the White House to say “NO!” to Keystone XL and other tar sands pipelines.

Two Enbridge pipelines cross the Straits of Mackinac,under our lakes, just west of the Bridge, Photo: MDOT Mackinac Bridge

“This is a recipe for disaster,” said Andy Buchsbaum, director of the Great Lakes office of the National Wildlife Federation in Ann Arbor. “This toxic oil pipeline is 60 years old, runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac, and is operated by a company with a terrible record of spills and ruptures. Now they want to increase pressure and temperature in the line by pumping an additional 50,000 barrels—2.1 million gallons—per day. This is a BP oil spill scale catastrophe waiting to happen.”

Enbridge Energy has been responsible for more than 800 pipeline spills in the United States and Canada between 1999-2010, including the biggest inland oil spill in U.S. history, in which more than 1 million gallons of oil spilled into the Kalamazoo River.

Despite its shoddy safety record, Enbridge Energy is now trying to expand Line 5. This project is part of a system wide expansion that will have massive impacts throughout the entire Great Lakes region as Enbridge gears up to push incredible amounts of toxic tar sands oil through our waters to refineries that dot the lakes. In addition, that oil is not likely to stay here. Enbridge is also expanding their pipeline network east of Michigan to push tar sands oil to New England and possibly out for export through the Portland-Montreal pipeline.

This NWF map simulates a 3, 6 and 12 hour spill from line 5 based on Enbridge spill response plans, average current speeds and “worse case” discharge estimates.

There is very little known about the integrity of Line 5 because Enbridge, and agencies charged with pipeline oversight, refuse to provide the pubic maintenance records or inspection history. What we do know is that Enbridge’s emergency response plans for this location are abysmal. The overall line is nearly 60 years old and has had its fair share of spills. And there is no margin for error when it comes to preventing oil spills in the Great Lakes: the Lakes provide drinking water for 30 million people in the U.S. and Canada, support a $7 billion fishery, a $16 billion recreational boating economy and are the backbone of one of the world’s largest regional economies.

The report makes the following recommendations to address the sunken hazard of Enbridge’s Line 5:

• PHMSA should deny the proposed 50,000 barrels per day expansion of the Enbridge pumping rate. PHMSA has authority under a federal corrective action agreement to regulate Enbridge activities anywhere along the Lakehead system, which includes Line 5. The higher pressures, and possibly temperatures, in a 60-year old line are too great a risk to the Straits, one of the jewels of Michigan and the Great Lakes.
• Enbridge should be required to install additional response centers on either side of the Straits to speed their response to any spills or ruptures.
• The 60-year old pipeline should be replaced, but only to its current size. Michigan should not have even more oil running through the Great Lakes.
• The federal agency, PHMSA, should declare a moratorium on any new or expanded pipelines that transport a highly toxic form of crude—tar sands derived oil that contains diluted bitumen—until after the National Academy of Sciences completes an ongoing study on this type of crude and new regulations are promulgated.
• Passage of the proposed ballot measure to increase clean energy from utilities, Proposal 3, would reduce the diesel gasoline used to transport coal into the state and promote the type of technological innovation that increases fuel economy in vehicles and decreases the demand for gasoline.

Take action to stop dangerous tar sands pipelines projects.

If you want to reach out to PHMSA directly and let them know you want to stop Enbridge from being allowed to expand, you can email them: phmsa.hm-approvals@dot.gov or call: 202-366-4535

Photo: Linda Shafe, Battle Creek
Enbridge stockpiles pipelines for their expansion to Line 6B of the Lakehead system.