Well, once again, things aren’t going so well for Enbridge– and they only have themselves to blame. As usual, Inside Climate News has more details on the story of Enbridge’s violations of a DEQ permit (and we’re so glad to see that David Hasemyer is back on the case!) while discharging water from their hydrotest into Ore Creek. As we noted before, our friend Jake McGraw blew the lid off this matter with his disturbing video of rust-colored water fouling the creek.
We were pleased to see Tyrone Township Supervisor Mike Cunningham talking tough about Enbridge (and we hope he’s backing that tough talk up):
“They think they can come in and do it their way without regard to the local and state rules,” said Tyrone Township Supervisor Mike Cunningham. “But they have to follow the rules.”
The township and Cunningham have butted heads with Enbridge for a year over whether the company should be required to follow local zoning regulations.
“They sometime take for granted they can do what they want,” Cunningham said. “They’ve dropped the ball so many times and they dropped the ball on this one.”
And we were bemused to by the (unsurprising) evasions of our old pal Enbridge spokesman Larry Springer. He’s full of banalities, of course, but Hasemyer points out more than once that Springer and Enbride have no explanation whatever for why they didn’t take the simple measures (like having an on-site monitor) required of them by the DEQ permit. Hasemyer also quotes our friend and fellow landowner Dave Gallagher, who nails it when he says, “It makes you think in terms of their long-term concern for the environment and the people who have to live with their pipeline in their backyards.”
But the money quote comes from the inimitable Carl Weimer, Executive Director of the Pipeline Safety Trust:
Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit watchdog organization based in Bellingham, Wash., said the incident signals a disconnect between the public image pipeline operators try to promote and the reality of their conduct.
“It doesn’t take many times hearing their PR people say ‘We are going above and beyond the regulations’ and come to find out they aren’t,” Weimer said. “It doesn’t take many of those instances when the reality is different from the promises to undermine the public’s trust.”
Weimer said the nation’s pipeline regulations aren’t that onerous and companies like Enbridge can easily afford to comply with them.
“They keep messing up on things they should be doing right,” he said. “It’s one of my frustrations that the industry has the resources and the technology to comply and they choose not to do so.
Elsewhere, Midwest Energy News has a fascinating and important story this week about yet another Enbridge strategy to build a Keystone XL-like network of pipelines to the Gulf Coast. We’ve been talking about Enbridge’s under-the-radar, permit-evading strategies for months, trying (mostly in vain) to get some of the eyeballs focused so intensely on KXL to turn in Enbridge’s directions. Karen Uhlenhuth’s fine article should be getting a great deal of attention. The bottom line: Enbridge has found yet another loophole that may allow them to escape public scrutiny and regulatory oversight:
Enbridge is trying to use a regulatory shortcut known as Nationwide Permit 12 that might allow it to get its pipe in the ground before it provokes the sort of opposition now marshaled against Keystone XL.
Credit for uncovering this “shortcut” goes to the Sierra Club, which is working hard to bring the details of this project to light.
There is also more news this week on the bizarre scheme to get Enbridge to purchase and remove Ceresco Dam. The Battle Creek Enquirer has the story.
And finally, this weekend’s rally at the Mackinac bridge is getting lots of well-deserved press. Let’s hope for a big turnout and lots of attention to the potential dangers to the Great Lakes posed by Enbridge’s aging pipe under the straits.