This week, while we’ve watched Enbridge’s construction crews return to our property, which is now once again torn up, strewn with long sections of pipe and heavy equipment and also, thanks to the weather, a big, sloggy, muddy mess, we’ve been stewing a little. And we’ve been ruminating on one basic question: why can’t Enbridge do better?
In this case, we’re not even talking about their operations. We’re not making a big deal out of the fact that some 400 feet of pipe they pulled beneath a road and across a couple of our neighbors’ properties is damaged and has to be replaced. We are not suggesting that this is a sign of carelessness or shoddy work or ineptitude or any such thing. We are not pipeline construction experts. We assume that these sorts of things happen from time to time; laying hundreds of miles of pipe is a complicated, sophisticated process about which we do not pretend to know very much (other than what we’ve learned over these several months). And in fact, we’re sure it’s better that they’re fixing the problems their tests discovered rather than finding ways to dismiss indications of problems (as was the case in Marshall in 2010). So, we have no real quarrel with the fact that they’ve had to re-commence construction in our neighborhood and on our property– even though we are tired tired tired, oh-so-tired of dealing with the noise, the mess, the intrusions, and the disruptions.
No, the problem– and this has ALWAYS been the problem– is with how they’ve gone about, with the thoughtless disregard Enbridge has shown toward us (in this case) and toward so many landowners over the course of this project. And for reasons we still cannot fathom– especially given all that has happened over the past year, all of the complaints and bad press and contention and legal-wrangling– Enbridge simply can’t seem to rectify this problem. They simply can’t seem to do any better. Why?
Let’s back up and review what’s transpired this week as we consider this most difficult of questions:
Some time a few weeks ago, our neighbors immediately adjacent to us were notified by an Enbridge rep that hydrotesting was about to take place on the newly installed line. We were not notified. Presumably, there is some reason for this– proximity, perhaps?– so we didn’t think a great deal of it. But then last weekend, construction crews arrived on that same neighbor’s property and began digging, commencing the process they are now in the middle of, replacing that stretch of pipe.
Naturally, we wondered if any construction would be taking place on our property. We also had some lingering questions about restoration, questions we’ve been trying to get answered since February. So we figured it was as good a time as any to give an agent a call (that is, the agent whose name we were given by our former agent who has since departed). Now, this particular agent happens to be, at least in our limited dealings with him, a very nice guy, polite, respectful, all of that. But he’s clearly overworked; he told us he was working on more than one Enbridge project at present. And not only is he overworked, he has obviously not been given any information about much of anything by anyone in any kind of supervisory position. (Who’s his boss? Doug Aller? Micah Harris? We’re not sure, but whoever it is, that person would appear to be doing a very, very poor job.) The reason we say he has not been given any information is because he told us, flatly and forthrightly (which was rather refreshing, to be honest) that he did not know anything about any of the questions we were asking– about restoration, including some things we’ve been told by Mark Curwin and Tom Hodge, about the recent tests, about the construction currently taking place, about the prospects for work taking place on our property. Nothing. He just didn’t know.
Now, it’s worth pausing here for one second to pose the obvious question: what is the point of giving landowners the contact information of people who are completely unable to answer any of their questions? What is a landowner supposed to do in such a situation? We’ll return to this question.
That call was early Monday morning. Then, surprisingly, not 10 minutes after hanging up the phone, we look out the back door and see surveyors on our property. So we went out to talk with them. The surveyor, unlike the land agent, did seem to know some things. He seemed to have some idea of how the pipe was damaged and the steps that crews were preparing to take in order to fix it. He told us that our property was going to be used to stage some pipe. What he did not say– and we don’t blame him for this; he’s just a surveyor– was that bulldozers were about to arrive to start pushing aside all of our topsoil and that other heavy equipment and a fleet of pickup trucks and all manner of noise and mess and mayhem would ensue. But over the next few days, that is exactly what has happened. We posted pictures of the scene yesterday.
Now, again, all of this mess is terribly unfortunate and frustrating. But ordinarily, we’d be disinclined to complain about it. We know it’s just the deal. Enbridge has an easement on our property. They need to install their pipe. They have to fix it when they find problems. We get all that. The problem, however, is this: no one from Enbridge ever told us beforehand that this was going to happen. We received NO notification. Not a friendly knock on the door, not a phone call, not even an email. Nothing. One day we’re thinking about planting some trees; the next day bulldozers are back. Just like that.
So here’s a second question: does that sound neighborly to you? Do good neighbors just show up unannounced, without so much as a courtesy call to let you know they’ll be dropping by? And when you later tell them that you don’t appreciate them just dropping by without the slightest warning– as I did in an email to Mark Curwin and Tom Hodge– would a good neighbor just ignore you?
Which brings us back to our original question: why can’t Enbridge do better? What is it that prevents them from taking even the simplest steps to cultivate good relations with landowners? What keeps them from doing the things they say they’ll do? from living up to the values they profess and the principles they say guide their conduct? from conducting themselves in such a manner that would prevent us from having an endless amount of material to write about? Why do they seem to be completely incapable of getting it right?
Well, we started this post wanting to answer that question. But the posing of the question has gotten much longer than we anticipated. So we’ll explore some answers in a separate posting. Stay tuned.