Bike billboards are circulating in DC to show that over 1 million comments were generated against Keystone XL. Photo: League of Conservation Voters

KXL Opponents Make Voices Heard

Following the close of the 45-day public comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, more than one million comments—including  nearly 100,000 from National Wildlife Federation supporters—were delivered to the U.S. State Department. These messages 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, and President Obama and Secretary Kerry should reject it.

This impressive total follows hundreds of opponents that testified—including ranchers, farmers and landowners who would be directly impacted by the pipeline—at the State Department’s lone public hearing last week in Grand Island, Nebraska, despite a spring storm that brought sleet and snow. And earlier this year, more than 40,000 people descended on our nation’s capital to call for bold action by President Obama to tackle the climate crisis and reject Keystone XL.

The EPA Weighs In

Echoing these same serious concerns, yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its own comments on the DEIS, giving the project a score of 2—meaning “insufficient” – and rating the environmental impact of Keystone XL as “environmentally objectionable.” In a letter to the State Department, the EPA urged State to conduct a more thorough analysis of oil spill risks and alternative pipeline routes, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that will result from increased tar sands production.

Oiled duck from Mayflower Ark. oil spill. Photo by Lauren Ray.

Just earlier this month, the pipeline rupture in Arkansas that spilled at least 210,000 gallons of tar sands oil—forcing evacuations, and leaving wildlife coated in toxic oil and struggling to survive—raised new concerns about pipeline safety and the risks associated with transporting corrosive tar sands oil. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would carry almost nine times as much tar sands oil per day as the pipeline that burst in Arkansas.

What’s Next

Now, the State Department will incorporate comments from the public and federal agencies and release their final environmental report this summer, at which point President Obama will have 90 days to determine whether or not Keystone XL is in the national interest.

While momentum is on our side, the fight doesn’t stop here. Keep an eye out for upcoming opportunities to speak up against the Keystone XL pipeline this summer, as well as more ways you can take action to protect wildlife from dangerous tar sands oil.

Tweet it! 45 days, 1 million comments, 1 movement. The message #NoKXL couldn’t be clearer to @barackobama: Reject #KeystoneXL!

Watch Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of National Wildlife Federation, as he reacts to the vote from the Platte River in Nebraska–a vital stopover for hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes threatened by toxic oil spills from Keystone XL:

Click here to view the embedded video.

At a time of record-breaking temperatures and increasingly devastating extreme weather events, our leaders need to stand up against dirty and dangerous energy projects. With your voice today, we can hold the senators accountable who sided with Big Oil over their constituents interests.

On Twitter?

Find your senators in the list below and remind them that Americans don’t want the Keystone XL pipeline by tweeting at them:

Protect caribou by telling the Obama administration to address Keystone XL’s impacts on wildlife, habitat and climate change.

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!

118 Sportsmen’s and Conservation Groups Urge Congress to Extend Wind Tax Credits

December 04-Congress should extend critical tax incentives that encourage renewable energy production and energy efficiency, 118 sportsmen’s, business and conservation groups from all over the U.S. urged in a letter to Congress today. The letter, with a list of sponsors, also appears as an ad in Politico today.

“Investment and growth in properly-sited, wildlife-friendly clean energy and conservation are the best ways to combat climate change, sustain communities, create American jobs, and promote economic growth across the country,” they wrote.

The letter asks Congress to continue the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC), tax incentives that will expire this year if Congress does not reauthorize them. The letter is consistent with a September poll of sportsmen that found 72 percent of hunters and anglers back renewable energy solutions.

For more, check out the following blog post:

• Sportsmen’s and Conservation Groups Letter to Congress (pdf)

Report Warns Planned Tar Sands Pipelines a North American Menace

December 06-Inviting an unprecedented expansion of tar sands pipelines in the U.S. and Canada would commit the countries to decades of doing business with companies that have a long record of disregard for the environment, human health and landowner rights, says a new report. The report release comes just a short time before the Obama Administration is slated to make an historic decision on the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

A tally of the new capacity, over 9,000 miles of pipe, finds the vast majority would be overseen by Canadian pipeline giants TransCanada and Enbridge. The report documents the two companies’ history of bullying landowners, influence peddling, wildlife deaths, oil spills and other bad acts that led the authors to name the report, “Crude Behavior: TransCanada, Enbridge, and the Tar Sand Industry’s Tarnished Legacy.”

While voters in the U.S. just rebuked an unprecedented fossil fuel industry effort to defeat President Barack Obama, who received widespread support from conservationists during his campaign, his administration will face an early test on the direction of its second-term climate and energy policy when it issues a final decision on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Defeated challenger Mitt Romney had promised to approve Keystone XL on his first day in office.

“Politicians cannot be serious about addressing extreme weather and slowing global warming if they ignore the pollution, wildlife, and property rights impacts of Keystone XL,” said Joe Mendelson, National Wildlife Federation’s director of climate and energy policy. “The carbon pollution math simply does not add up.”

For more on the report, check out the following blog post:

• Pipeline Companies’ Crude Behavior Exposed

For the full “Crude Behavior” report, check out:

• www.nwf.org/crudebehavior

Ranger Rick Goes Digital! Introduces the First Truly Interactive Magazine for Kids

December 05-Ranger Rick, everyone’s favorite raccoon, is introducing a new, highly interactive magazine app called Ranger Rick’s Tree House. The National Wildlife Federation, publisher of Ranger Rick magazine, and also Ranger Rick’s Tree House, has entertained and educated generations of children about the wonders of animals and nature for 50 years. Like the print magazine, all educational content within the magazine app is aligned to national curriculum standards and meets the fun-factor that Ranger Rick readers have grown to know and love.

“This product totally re-envisions how children ages 7-12 read and consume magazine-like content on digital devices,” says Mary Dalheim, Editorial Director of Ranger Rick Publications.  “No other digital children’s magazine is more innovative, interactive, or just plain fun.”

For more on Ranger Rick’s Goes Digital, check out:

• Ranger Rick’s Tree House
• Ranger Rick Goes High Tech (blog post)

Win a Pass for a Private Screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

December 04-National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is teaming up with Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM) and New Line Cinema for the Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular novel The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The film opens in theaters and IMAX® 3D December 14. As the education partner for the film, the National Wildlife Federation is providing online resources to help students, educators, parents and individuals start their own unexpected journey outdoors and is hosting a sweepstakes for a complimentary private screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The sweepstakes deadline is 11:59 p.m. on December 13. Enter on NWF’s website www.nwf.org/thehobbit

Report: Crude Behavior

December 06-Up north of the border, past Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, the planet’s biggest carbon bomb is ticking. It’s called the tar sands region, and it represents both incredible feats of industry and incredible hubris —– and potentially the last blow to the fight against global climate change.

Tar sands are sludge. A sticky, viscous, tarry material that literally oozes from the ground in certain areas of northern Canada and other places like Russia, Venezuela, and even right here in the US. Technically called “bitumen,” tar sands can be processed into gasoline and other petroleum products, though it takes more effort and causes a lot more pollution than conventional oil, the liquid we’re used to seeing drilled up by rigs in Texas or Saudi Arabia. The cornerstone of the argument against tar sands is that because it requires so much energy to turn from sludge into gasoline, it produces a significantly greater amount of the carbon dioxide which is turning our atmosphere into a heat-trapping blanket and fundamentally altering nearly every ecosystem on Earth. About 100 trillion gallons of tar sands have been discovered so far, enough to fill 160 million Olympic swimming pools. The vast majority is in Canada, which holds around three quarters of the world total.

For more on Tar Sands, check out the following blog post:

• Pipeline Companies’ Crude Behavior Exposed

For more on the oil industry, check out the following blog post:

• The Push for Oil Shale: News Ripped from Last Century’s Headlines

And now here are highlights from NWF in the news:

• E&E Greenwire: Enviros Blast Pipeline Companies Ahead of Obama’s Decision
• Public News Service: Tar Sands Pipeline Project “Slinking Forward” Towards Maine
• Public News Service: Tar Sands Pipeline Project “Slinkning Forward” Into New England
• The Pittsburgh Press:  Aviary’s birds prep for national TV spot
• About.com: The Hobbit Private Screening Contest Details
• Mother Nature Network:  New magazine brings wildlife wonder to little adventurers
• Public News Service:  Ohio Hunters and Anglers Back Clean Wind Energy
• The New York Times: A New Wildlife Magazine Aimed at the Very Young
• Wicked Local Lexington: Lexington backyard certified as wildlife habitat

For more visit www.nwf.org/news

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.

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

Enbridge was referring to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the July 2010, Marshall, Mich. spill. This tar sands spill killed an unknown number of wildlife, sickened communities and polluted nearly 40 miles of waterways—for generations to come.

Enbridge can no longer hide behind the unanswered questions and must now face the reality of having the largest inland tar sands oil spill in history. Not only do people want answers from Enbridge, but we also want solutions from the federal agency that oversees pipeline safety, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

NTSB’s investigation revealed that Enbridge demonstrated gross negligence in maintaining their pipelines along with inept operators at their controls. All of this aided in the largest inland tar sands oil spills in history, which went undetected and unreported for nearly 17 hours. The disaster was made worse by Enbridge not having adequate response plans in place and not properly notifying first responders of possible issues on the line.

Not only did this investigation answer some of the most basic questions, it is also going to be the basis for many decisions about fines, penalties and even criminal actions towards Enbridge.

NTSB also revealed that Enbridge has had a detailed history of failure and continues to not act on that failure. Matt Nicholson, pipeline investigator with the federal safety board added this comment:

“Lessons are being lost” on Enbridge…

Despite the obvious failure and neglect, the State of Michigan and the federal government are allowing Enbridge Energy to build an additional pipeline along this decrepit pipeline, which will have the ability to triple the amount of tar sands oil flowing through the Great Lakes.

For the National Wildlife Federation, who has been on the ground responding to this disaster since the first few days, these basic needs and actions are clear and most urgent:

• Line 6B should not be in operation until all structural defects are repaired and Enbridge should not be allowed to build a new and larger pipeline alongside Line 6B.
  

  NWF photo: Tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River, one year later.

• Enbridge should be required to run an integrity inspection on all operating pipelines within the US, by a third party.
• No tar sands pipelines should be approved for construction until the National Academy of Sciences has concluded a study on how transportation of diluted bitumen impacts current pipelines.
• Any pipeline operator transporting this product should be required to develop alternative response plans; taking into account the unique nature of the toxic heavy bitumen and the need for increased relationships with first responders.
• A thorough health study should be conducted on how a release of diluted bitumen impacts wildlife and human health—short and long term.
• Integrity management programs need to be overhauled and there needs to be increased oversight, on the part of PHMSA, during pipeline inspections and when reviewing emergency response plans.

To learn more about tar sands pipelines and ways to support alternative energy solutions, please visit NWF’s Action Fund Center.

In 2008, when they thought no one was watching, oil companies Enbridge and the Portland Montreal Pipeline Company hatched a plan to reverse the flow of two existing pipelines to send dirty tar sands crude through Ontario, Quebec, and into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine for refining along the East Coast and Gulf Coast and export abroad. The plan would have exposed American treasures to the risks of a tar sands oil spill. These include Sebago Lake, which supplies Portland, Maine with its drinking water; the Connecticut River, New England’s largest; the Misissiquoi River, historically valuable to tribes and tributary of Lake Champlain; and other critical resources. It also would have provided another fuse to set off the tar sands carbon bomb by giving this land-locked resource access to markets abroad and in the U.S.

To learn more about the threat of tar sands to New England, see this fact sheet.

In 2009 the plan was shelved due to the poor economy. Now it’s back. And Big Oil won’t tell you about it.

That’s because Canada’s dirty secret has gotten out. Tar sands are an environmental disaster. As James Hansen put it, tar sands are a climate bomb that would add 120 parts per million of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, enough to catapult us past a host of dangerous climate tipping points. Tar sands development is also turning North America’s bird nursery into a toxic waste zone, leading to the decline of caribou in Alberta, and responsible for a tragic and misguided plan to kill thousands of wolves to “protect” caribou instead of forcing Big Oil to stop destroying caribou habitat.

And then there is the risk of spills. When Line 6B ruptured in Michigan in July of 2010, 1.2 million gallons of oil–enough oil to cover over three acres of land with a foot of oil–spilled into the Kalamazoo River. The cost of clean-up has been 18 times per liter as that of already expensive conventional oil spills, while sticky tar sands still coats portions of the river’s bottom and the spill has left many residents sick.

Now that they are being watched, Big Oil wants to hide the ball. But their plans to bring tar sands to New England are becoming increasingly clear.

First, in summer of 2011, Enbridge announced plans to partially reverse the flow of Line 9, the first of the two pipelines in the original “Trailbreaker” proposal. Last week, before Canadian hearings on the partial reversal have even occurred, Enbridge announced a plan to fully reverse the flow of the Line 9 pipeline all the way to Montreal. And Enbridge finally conceded that diluted bitumen (the especially corrosive form of tar sands) was slated to be transported through Line 9. Assuming Canadian officials increasingly beholden to Big Oil will rubberstamp these plans, Enbridge is now one step away–reserving the flow of the Portland-Montreal pipeline–from bringing tar sands to New England.

New England can’t afford to have Big Oil’s attempt to sneak tar sands through the region succeed. In July, New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Provincial Premiers are meeting in Burlington, Vermont. Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is hosting. Governor Shumlin has been a true leader on energy issues and climate. He also understands that the Connecticut River cannot become the next Kalamazoo.

In a recent meeting preparing for the July event, Governor Shumlin said,

“I don’t think that we’ve dug deep enough in terms of really having a plan that’s going to enrich us all and make New England and the Northeast provinces the place where we get energy right. We have that opportunity; the planning for that opportunity is in your hands.”

The meeting will focus on a climate change plan endorsed by the Governors and Premiers to reduce greenhouse gases by 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Getting energy right, protecting New England from an environmental calamity like the Kalamazoo spill, and reducing carbon pollution means keeping New England tar sands free and denying tar sands’ companies the market access they crave. At the July meeting, the Governors and Premiers need to discuss the threat of tar sands to New England and set a goal of keeping New England tar sands free.

Governor Shumlin is right, New England has an opportunity to get energy policy right, and that opportunity is in our hands. Big Oil wants to snake tar sands into the Northeast. They are hoping we won’t notice. We can’t afford to let that happen.

Click here to help protect Northeastern wildlife from dirty tar sands oil.

AP Photo

Jeremy Symons, senior vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, said:

“It’s hard to tell what’s really new about TransCanada’s application, which continues to threaten Nebraska’s iconic Sandhills and its critical Ogallala aquifer. It’s just the latest broken promise from TransCanada, which has threatened to seize Nebraskan lands by eminent domain and claimed its Keystone I pipeline would spill very rarely, then spilled 12 times in its first year of operation.”

The Alberta-based company is already planning to move forward with the project’s southern segment(from Cushing, OK to the Port Arthur, TX). Because the southern segment won’t cross an international boundary, the State Department won’t require a presidential permit for it to be built, but the southern segment still needs water permits from the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). TransCanada wants limited review of this dangerous project and they want to stay out of the public eye after the bruising they took during the first round of this fight.They’re betting that it will be harder for the State Department to say no to the rest of the pipeline if a significant portion of it is already in place — However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already said more scrutiny is needed.

Gulf Coast Project

As NWF’s Jeremy Symons argues,

“The only thing this pipeline would guarantee is billions in annual profit for oil companies, while risking long-lasting damage to our waters and lands. That’s why oil companies have pushed so hard to have their allies in Congress take this decision out of the hands of safety regulators – they know if Keystone XL is judged fairly on its impacts on America’s land, water, wildlife and climate, it doesn’t stand a chance.”

Protesters carry an inflatable Keystone Xl pipeline around the White House during the Nov. 6th rally. (Photo: Marine Jaouen)

Help us make sure this dangerous pipeline gets the scrutiny it deserves. Speak up now for wildlife and people affected by tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline:

When terrible things happen in the world, it is challenging to know what to say. In 2010, National Wildlife Federation prepared a guide for parents and caregivers on how to talk with kids about the Gulf Oil Spill. It continues to bring thousands of people to our website because the tips are relevant for other events as well.

Waking up to an Oil Spill

When Susan Connolly woke up to find an oil spill in her community in July 2010, she first had to help her own children. They got sick, and then they had questions. In the video below, Susan says:

My son was only four at the time and now he’s just over five. We don’t talk about it in front of the children but he knows. Just last week they went on a class trip to a fire department and they must have crossed over the Kalamazoo River. The first thing he says to me is “Mommy we went on a class trip today and I saw the oil spill.”… It’s always going to have an impact for him because when we talk about going on a nice river walk, he says, “Mommy are we going to walk in the oil?” That’s how a five-year-old child thinks of his river, as oil.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Becoming a Pipeline Activist

Susan is a busy working mom of two young children, but when the Enbridge oil spill happened right in her community, she could not stand by. Any moment she can after work, after the kids go to bed, she is researching, attending meetings, preparing speeches, getting interviewed by the media and encouraging others in her community to speak up.

Susan came to Washington DC in October 2011 to testify at the Keystone XL hearings about the impact of a tar sands oil spill on a community. She described what it did to her home town of Marshall, Michigan. Houses that were near the river were purchased, but home owners a little farther on were left without compensation, and in a half-empty community. This created tension in a small community.

There are a lot of people who have had settlement agreements with the oil companies, so they can’t speak. It’s pretty much a gag order that once you settle, you can’t say anything. A lot of people with their health are tied up in lawsuits, so of course they can’t speak because of their current litigation. So I have no lawsuits, I’m not going to sue anyone. But I care about the environment. I care about the people. And you just need someone to be able to communicate for everyone, but not be accusatory and not be threatening.

There are events in our lives that change everything. There are moments when we know we must step up because we are the right person in the right time. Certainly Susan would wish that there had never been an oil spill that filled her local stream and river with thick tar sands oil. But she made a choice in how she responded – a courageous choice.

She continues to collaborate with people in her community and the National Wildlife Federation in the hopes of bringing good from this terrible event, whether that means standing up against the Keystone XL pipeline, or helping other communities maintain their pipelines better. This month she attended a conference about pipeline safety, one of the only attendees who was not from government or the pipeline industry. As Susan says:

I’m doing this now because my children were harmed. My children were hurt, and we’ve been dismissed… And because of that I’m not going to go away, and I’m not going to stop.

Show Your Support

If you’d like to send best wishes to Susan, please comment on this blog post, tweet about it or like it on Facebook.

Suggested Tweet – Courageous mom stands up for her children & community after oil spill http://bit.ly/v1AsMh via @nwf

Another way to show your support is to donate to National Wildlife Federation’s work on to stop dirty fuels and the Keystone XL pipeline at our Choose Your Cause website.

But one aspect of the Straits of Mackinac that I’m sure you’re unaware of is the presence of a 20 million gallon a day oil pipeline running right under our two Great Lakes.

Sitting just below the surface of our waterway is Line 5 of Enbridge’s Lakehead system, which connects the Alberta tar sands region to refineries here in Michigan and the Midwest. This pipeline is almost 60 years old, and Enbridge has plans to expand it without replacing it! This expansion is part of a larger strategy to deliver Alberta tar sands oil to the east coast for export.

If the company Enbridge sounds familiar to you, that’s for good reason. Last July, Enbridge was the pipeline operator that spilled nearly 1 million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River watershed. This spill went unnoticed, by Enbridge, for nearly 13 hours before a local utility brought the devastating incident to their attention. Fifteen months later, the impacted sections of the Kalamazoo River remain closed to the public as air and water monitoring continues along with the clean-up of submerged oil.

Imagine how an oil spill and closure like that would impact our already suffering economy, fragile ecosystem and the billions of dollars we have invested into restoring and protecting our Great Lakes.

Adding to the concern and risk is how this industry is regulated, or lack thereof.  Enbridge is not required to disclose to federal regulators when product in that pipeline changes. This means that Line 5 could be transporting the more corrosive, toxic and unstable raw tar sands crude at any time without notifying anyone of the change.

Tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River, one year later.

To date, Enbridge denies that the raw form of tar sands oil travels through Line 5, known as diluted bitumen. But disclosure of when product changes is not required by the federal oversight agency, Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, because they still have not updated rules and regulations around this new product. In their eyes, crude is crude.

Ask anyone from the Kalamazoo River area if they think crude is crude.

With the Kalamazoo River oil spill this past July, Enbridge and EPA officials did not learn quick enough that dealing with a tar sands oil spill is much more difficult than dealing with a conventional oil spill. Simply put, conventional clean-up techniques do not work because tar sands oil sinks in water, rather than floats, so the EPA and Enbridge are writing the book on how to clean up tar sands oil as they go along.

Given that pipeline operators and oversight agencies admit that they do not know how to properly respond to a tar sands oil spill, I would hope that Congress and the agencies responsible for pipeline safety would block future projects until proper safeguards are in place to protect our communities and natural resources from another disaster.

To learn more about ways you can help prevent expansion of tar sands pipelines and protect wildlife, please visit National Wildlife Federation Action Fund.