“Fair and consistent”?

Here at the Line 6B Citizens’ Blog, we pride ourselves on being calm, rational, and reasonable– even though this is a very emotional issue. We’re talking about disruptions to people’s homes and lives here, after all. But every once in a while, something gets us hopping mad. This morning, that something is Christopher Behnan’s latest story in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus.

What’s got us worked up and fuming? Well, it’s not just that we empathize with the Nash family (although we certainly do; the clock is ticking on many of our beloved trees as well). And it’s not Behnam’s reporting, which we’ve quibbled with a bit in the past (in fact, despite those quibbles, we’re quite grateful that he has stayed on the story– unlike, say, the hapless Oakland Press). No. We’re all on fire about the remarks of Enbridge spokesman Jason Manshum.

We know it shouldn’t get to us. I mean, we’ve been listening to the same hollow phrases and vacuous platitudes from Enbridge spokespersons for months. But I guess there’s only so much of it that a body can take before wanting to just gouge out one’s own eyeballs. Here’s the statement from Manshum that put us over the top this morning:

Our commitment is to ensure that landowners are treated fairly and consistently, and we try our best to identify any specific considerations ahead of time.

Now, there’s much to dispute in the second part of this statement (about identifying specific considerations ahead of time) and perhaps we’ll take that up in a second post. But it’s the first part that really irks. Are “landowners treated fairly and consistently” by Enbridge? Oh, my. Here are just three example of unfair and inconsistent treatment of landowners by Enbridge:

1. Enbridge asked many (perhaps all) landowners to sign agreements that contained indemnification clauses stating that landowners would not hold Enbridge responsible for damages or harm caused during construction. Many of us had that clause struck before signing anything. Treating landowners consistently would require that Enbridge take that clause out for EVERY landowner? Did they do so? Did ANY landowners sign documents granting indemnity to Enbridge? I’m willing to wager they did.
2. This one we can verify: Enbridge offered us a different value per acre price for work in our easement and temporary workspace than they offered our neighbors. Fair and consistent treatment would require that Enbridge offer the same value– which they only agreed to do after we learned about the inconsistency and cried foul.
3. We can also verify this one: Enbridge ROW agents told us that Enbridge will not pay for trees within the easement. And they didn’t. But they did pay our neighbor for trees within their easement. This strikes us as neither fair nor consistent.

We started this blog in the hopes that it would encourage neighbors to talk to neighbors, landowners to talk with other landowners– because that is only way to learn and document how Enbridge does NOT treat landowners fairly and consistently. For that reason, we invite readers to comment and supply even more examples– that is, specific, concrete instances– of unfair, inconsistent treatment. (We can only imagine the bounty of examples, protected by attorney-client privilege, that our lawyer friends could supply!)

We don’t know whether Jason Manshum actually believes the things that he says; perhaps he is just misinformed. Perhaps he just has no idea what ROW agents actually say to individual landowners. In fact, we’ll even set aside our anger and frustration for a moment and return to our normal calm in order to offer up a generous reading of hist statement, which is this: Manshum really means it when he says Enbridge is committed to treating landowners “fairly and consistently.” He just doesn’t know or doesn’t want to confront the fact that Enbridge is failing miserably to live up to that commitment.