On Enbridge’s “open and honest dealings,” Part 4

We thought we were done with our series on Enbridge spokesman Larry Springer’s outrageous statement a couple of weeks back. You remember: Springer insisted that Enbridge’s actions show that they deal openly and honestly with stakeholders, despite what those pesky “special interest groups” and their compatriots in the media who just want to stir up controversy would have you believe.

We took exception with that statement (again and again). We think we made our point quite clearly (and factually). We were prepared to give it a rest for a while.

But then examples of not-so-open and not-so-honest dealings by Enbridge just keep coming. Here’s a recent one:  

Two weeks ago, on Sept. 13, Enbridge agreed to a “workshop” with the Brandon Township Board of Trustees. It was a rare opportunity for local officials and citizens to ask lots of questions. And, to be fair, many of those questions were actually answered– not by Enbridge spokespersons or attorneys, of course, but by Enbridge Project Manager Thomas Hodge.

We asked some questions ourselves, three very simple ones:

1. Is Brandon Township considered a “High Consequence Area (HCA)”?
2. Which of the items– specifically– on the comparison document that Enbridge sent exceed U.S. federal regulations?
3. Finally, in the event that Enbridge were to reactivate the old pipe (which they say they have “no plans” to do), would reactivation require MPSC approval or notification of stakeholders?

Enbridge had no answers to these questions. Nor did they have answers to a number of the trustees’ questions. Two in particular stand out in our memory:

1. The trustees asked for a list of Township wetlands that would be crossed by the pipeline.
2. The trustees asked whether Enbridge has ever reactivated a line in the past (all of the Enbridge reps said that they knew of no such instances, but I had no trouble finding some).

In addition to these simple, factual questions, there were others (we can’t recall all of them) for which Enbridge had no ready answers. But in the case of all five of these (and, again, there were more), Enbridge reps stated very clearly that they would look into them and get back to the Board with answers– and indeed, that would be the open and honest thing to do.

But here’s what we know: it has now been two full weeks since that meeting and Enbridge has not followed up; they have not provided Brandon with any answers to any of those questions.