If you haven’t seen it yet, Inside Climate News has published another fine piece by David Hasemyer. This one focuses on what we in the article call the “shocking and shameful” silence of Michigan elected officials on Enbridge. Check it out. Share it. Write your representatives!
A few other items of note have appeared in the past couple of days:
Despite the protests of some county residents, the Livingston County commissioners approved an Enbridge easement across its airport. Despite this, we were impressed by the remarks of Jeannette DiFlorio in pushing back against the plan:
“Many homeowners along the route of the pipeline feel no one in government is standing up for them, and they are left to fight by themselves for fair treatment from a wealthy corporation,” DiFlorio stated. “That’s not right.”
In Canada, Enbridge has just received approval to reverse the direction of Line 9, which runs from the Sarnia terminal to Hamilton (in Canada). Sarnia just happens to be where our own Line 6B terminates. We’re not sure what, if anything, this could mean. But it gives us some pause.
Finally, the National Wildlife Federation is set to release a report about Enbridge’s Line 5 expansion, which crosses water near the Mackinac Bridge. NWF’s Beth Wallace says,
“We’re concerned about the state of the pipeline and whether adding horsepower to its pumping stations will put it at risk of a similar leak.”
We’re looking forward to the full report, which we plan to discuss more once we’ve read it in full.
I am not surprised to read that all these attempts to get action from senators and congressmen were a disappointment. I contacted Governor Snyder’s office the middle of August and spoke with “constituent services”. While explaining my concerns the woman on the phone (her response: Enbridge Oil? who?) told me I could not speak directly to the governor because he “didnt have time for me”. But she promised to get back with me after researching my problem. When that never happened I made an online inquiry to the Governor at the state of MIchigan website. On 9/19 I received an email response from the same woman promising to research my problem and direct my issues to the appropriate people (including the MPSC who never answered my previous letters of August 23). Here it is October 18 and I still have not received any response, email or phone contact, from any person(s) including the promised response from the MPSC. So just a heads up at election time 1) Does our governor know who Enbridge Oil is? If so, maybe he should enlighten his employees at “constituent services” since they are the people in charge of dealing with our questions and concerns. Looks to me like they are not doing their jobs. 2) I have learned via phone conversation with this constituent services dept that the MPSC Chairman and Board members are not employees of the state, therefore we are “not allowed” to speak with them directly about our concerns (REALLY??) But do they know how to write a letter in response to receiving a letter? 3) Looks like indifference and incompetence filters down through all levels of our government.
It’s obvious why the politicians aren’t responding-their pockets are padded by the
oil companies. They ‘won’t bite the hand that feeds them’. We the people voted
them in, and we the people need to vote them out. It just blows my mind that
they let a Canadian company steam-roll over us. Hats off to Di Florio at the Commissioners meeting. The rest of them are typical politicians that don’t have
the balls to say no.