Among other things, we’re working this week on our upcoming presentation at the Pipeline Safety Trust conference, where we’re eager for the chance to talk with other landowners, regulators, and industry personnel. We’re looking forward to listening and learning. Perhaps we’ll even get a chance to meet and speak face to face with some Enbridge folks!
Of course, we’ve already spoken at some length with Enbridge Vice President Mark Sitek and we’re looking forward to a follow-up conversation or two. As regular readers know, we’ve been using that initial conversation as an opportunity to diagnose Enbridge, to try and articulate some of the underlying conditions that plague them and cause them to alienate stakeholders. We’ll likely talk about some of this in our presentation at the conference this week.
Just this morning, we were thinking about this alienation of stakeholders after reading the comments of Brandon Township Supervisor Kathy Thurman in the Brandon Citizen. Referring to a number of outstanding questions from a meeting with Enbridge representatives two months ago, Thurman said:
“Enbridge does not appear to be sincere in what they have communicated to the township. They have made statements that they will get information we have requested, but they have not produced it for us.”
Of course, we suspected at the time that Enbridge wasn’t altogether sincere– and more or less said as much in our report of that meeting. But the larger point here is that Enbridge seems to have serious problems with sincerity in general. That’s the topic of this installment in our series:
Part 4; Just tell the @&*! truth
We begin once again with one of Enbride’s stated core values: “Maintain truth in all interactions.” This, we believe, is excellent policy. We try very hard to adhere to it ourselves on this very blog. But based on our experience, this is another value that Enbridge fails to live up to. Indeed, there appears to be something deeply ingrained in Enbridge’s corporate culture that prevents them from simply being straightforward and forthright. We’re not saying that everything you hear from Enbridge is an outright falsehood. But we are saying that in far too many instances, you simply can’t take what Enbridge says at face value. And that’s a problem.
A ramble through our archives will reveal plenty of examples. But here is a quick rundown on some of them:
- Statements and promises from ROW agents far too numerous to recount.
- When asked by a reporter at the small-town Tri-City Times about the sudden appearance of pipes near Capac, Enbridge spokesperson said they were for integrity work on Line 5. We found that explanation suspicious. And it was. Manshum later provided a different explanation.
- In one of their recent ads, Enbridge claimed that “landowner representatives” (ie, ROW agents) are our “neighbors.” But as far as we know, only one ROW agent working with landowners on this project has ever resided in Michigan. All the rest are from out of state.
- Enbridge spokesperson Jennifer Smith recently claimed that Enbridge pays compensation for “disturbance and inconvenience.” We were led to believe by our ROW agent that Enbridge does not pay for these things.
- Lands and Right-of-Way Project Manager Doug Aller said that he would call me. He has never called me.
Individually, perhaps any one of these things can be explained away or, in some cases, forgiven: ROW agents are misinformed or under pressure; Manshum just didn’t know what was going on in Capac; Doug Aller is a very, very busy guy; advertisements always shade the truth a little. Nevertheless, the fact is that all of these (arguably) little things– placed alongside plenty of big things– add up. They accrue. And taken cumulatively, they exhibit a pattern of behavior– a pattern that would cause anyone to wonder and worry.
So what does all of this have to do with Mark Sitek? We are not going to claim that he did not speak truthfully with us. We still think our conversation with him was conducted (mostly) in good faith. However, we do think that parts of our conversation illustrated the culture we described before: a culture that for some reason finds it hard just to be forthright. Let us explain.
One of the more interesting moments in our conversation was when I raised the issue of reactivation of the old pipe. This is (possibly) another example of an instance where one can’t quite be certain about Enbridge’s statements. Back in September, we heard four different representatives tell the Brandon board of trustees that they knew of no cases where Enbridge had reactivated an idle pipe. But then it took us no more than an hour or two to find three examples— one featured prominently on Enbridge’s own website. So were the Enbridge reps just not telling the truth? We don’t know. But we are left wondering.
An any rate, Mark was much more straightforward about the matter than almost anyone we’ve ever heard. He eventually conceded– after a while, not right away and with some reluctance– that it is possible they could use the deactivated pipe in the future, though they have no current plans to do so. In fact, he said Enbridge has the legal right to use that pipe.
Now, we don’t much care for that answer. I don’t want that pipe ever to be used again. But it is the truth. And we respect the truth. The problem, we pointed out to Mark, is that nobody EVER says that. The only thing anybody from Enbridge ever says about that question is “we have no plans” to put it back into use. And when they say that, they just sound evasive, less than truthful, certainly not forthright. Yet they seem to have no sense of this whatsoever. They seem unable to grasp the simple fact that people would much rather be dealt with truthfully and straightforwardly, even if the news is bad, than be dealt with evasively and misleadingly.
The same holds for the matter of the indemnification language we’ve discussed so many times before (most recently here). Mark disagreed with us about the meaning of that language (that may be the subject of a later post), though we maintained that its net effect was corrosive to relations. But when we suggested that Enbridge stop shopping that language to landowners, Mark expressed concern about what the “storyline” would be– that is, he was worried that changing that practice would simply allow people to say, “see, Enbridge admits that it’s been doing wrong.”
Yet that reply is the whole problem we’re describing here. Mark’s primary concern in this case was not with repairing relations with landowners, with doing what’s right, with confronting the truth of that indemnity language, with making changes that might benefit everybody. Rather, his concern was with Enbridge’s public image.
What he seemed not to understand– what Enbridge, in general, seems not to understand (just witness their series of recent ads)– is that this relentless devotion to its public image is precisely (paradoxically) the cause of its poor public image. Saying you’re a good neighbor isn’t the same as being a good neighbor. Saying you treat people fairly isn’t the same as treating people fairly. Saying you value the truth isn’t the same as just telling the @&*! truth.