One of the things we’ve said here many times is that Enbridge is largely in charge of what we write here at the Line 6B Citizens’ Blog. That is, if they didn’t just keep doing the same things over and over and over, we wouldn’t continue to have material to write about. After all, it’s not as if we’re just making things up.
Today is a case in point. We were perfectly content to have an Enbridge-free day, to give them (and ourselves) a little respite from all of these tales of landowner dissatisfication (and make no mistake about it, folks at Enbridge our among our most loyal readers!). But our fellow landowners keep sending us unhappy emails, looking for help, looking for information that they’re not getting, though they should be, from Enbridge. What are we to do?
So here’s what we learned today: just like us, many landowners on phase one have no idea what’s currently going on. Enbridge sent their contractors out to do restoration, did a half-assed job about it (forgive our language), and then disappeared, leaving all sorts of problems behind and no one for individual property owners to talk to about those problems. We’re experiencing this ourselves. Our last right of way agent retired and the person we contacted in his stead to help address some restoration matters we’re experiencing seems to have gone awol. He promised a call “in a couple of days” almost two weeks ago. Why? We have no idea.
And so it is with a distressed landowner who wrote to us today from over in Howell. Enbridge has left huge ruts and a gigantic bowl of water (and it’s not like it’s been raining lately!) on his property, among other things. And he has nowhere to turn. No one to call (no one, at least, who will return his calls). He is feeling “frustrated” and “ignored” (his words). He just wants some basic information, some simple communication. But from Enbridge: nothing. And this is what he’s left with:
We received another email today from a landowner on phase two. She’s also feeling frustrated, but also lied to and misled. She has a situation in which Enbridge told her, repeatedly, for months that they would be boring beneath the road that leads into her cul-de-sac, rather than cutting a ditch across it. Then, right before construction began this week, they informed her that they’d have to cut in after all. But they also assured her they would do so in such a way that would still allow access into the cul-de-sac so that she could, you know, get to her house. So what happened next? Well, they went ahead and cut across the entire road. Just look; it’s all blocked off:
So here’s the thing: Enbridge can posture and tell pleasing tales and pretend like they care and give assurances until they’re blue in the face. But the facts on the ground could not be more clear: Enbridge leaves landowners in the dark, tells them misleading stories, ignores their phone calls, and creates more and more bad feelings, leaves more and more landowners frustrated and helpless. These aren’t the grumblings of revolutionary environmentalists or people who just like to bitch and whine (one of the landowners who wrote to us today said he hasn’t said anything up to now because he doesn’t like to complain; we believe him!); they’re not even windbag bloggers. They’re just regular people who don’t want to stir up trouble, but just want to get on with their lives.
It’s become quite clear to us that people at Enbridge like Doug Aller and Mike Harris, the people whose specific job it is to make sure that landowners are dealt with respectfully, are unwilling to do anything at all to fix these persistent problems; they won’t even return emails or phone calls. So what is it going to take to get someone higher up the payscale, someone like, say, Mark Sitek or Stephen Wuori or Al Monaco to take these matters seriously? To show some real leadership and make sure that the people down the line take care of business in a way that is commensurate with the corporate rhetoric? Do they just lack the integrity and honesty to face this situation for what it is, to live up to their own stated corporate values? Do they lack the simple human decency that would otherwise compel them to not accept that the landowners in Michigan feel helpless, frustrated, and abused?
So, Enbridge readers, this one is for you: if there is ANYONE at your company who cares even the tiniest bit about the frustrated man with the ruts and standing water on his property who is frustrated and just wants to know what in heaven’s name is going on with restoration, please contact us here and we will give you his name and number (without a word of acrimony or criticism or any carping whatsoever about ourselves and our own situation; we promise) so that he can just obtain some basic information and maybe get a decent night’s sleep.