by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 21, 2020 |
It’s been a bad week for Enbridge.
By now, I assume you’ve seen the news: Enbridge disclosed to the state on Thursday that they’ve discovered serious but unexplained damage to an anchor supporting a segment of Line 5. Apparently it was bad enough that Enbridge shut the line down briefly. The governor sent a letter requesting more information but before the ink was even dry on that letter Enbridge started the line up again, prompting a second stern letter from Governor Whitmer. As of this writing, no one really knows what happened.
This news comes on the heels of the announcement, which I wrote about on Friday, that the EPA fined Enbridge more than $6 million dollars for safety violations related to the 2017 consent decree. Unsurprisingly, Enbridge offered up a whole bunch of lame excuses for their lack of compliance with some very simple rules.
It also comes on the heels of a rather extraordinary letter published in the Detroit News by Enbridge’s Great Lakes Director of Operatons Mike Moeller. Of course, the letter has nothing interesting to say at all. What makes it extraordinary is the sheer number of bromides Moeller (or the PR shill who wrote it for him) is able to pack into a short letter to the editor. It trots out every hackneyed phrase (“indomitable resolve”! “unwavering focus”! “hard work [and] determination”) its authors could think of and then, just when you start to feel queasy, they add some platitudes about “resilience” and “forg[ing] strong connections with the communities in which we operate” and Michigander’s “spirit in the face of adversity”– a spirit Moeller apparently finds “inspiring.” Gag.
This sort of clichéd prose, as any reader can tell instantly, is the hallmark of insincerity. And ordinarily, I wouldn’t even bother commenting on yet another pointless assemblage of vapid phrases from Enbridge. But the juxtaposition of Moeller’s letter with the other Enbridge news of this week provides a striking reminder of something else everyone else knows but that can’t be repeated often enough:
That despite all their public relations claptrap about “critical infrastructure” needs, all their hollow talk about their commitments to Michigan, and all their unconvincing assurances about “operational and environmental safeguards,” Enbridge really only cares about one thing: pumping as much oil through their pipelines as quickly and for as long as they can to make as much profit as possible. Period. That’s it.
So if that means treating landowners, communities, and local officials shabbily, so be it. If that means withholding information of pipeline defects from the state or dragging their feet to fix those defects, so be it. If that means treating “administrative” matters as an afterthought, so be it. And if that means thumbing their nose at a Governor rightly concerned about the revelation of a potentially dangerous situation and hastily starting Line 5 up again despite her calls that they proceed with caution and transparency, then so be it.
Update (6/23): In response to the re-start and disregard of Gov. Whitmer’s request for a full investigation, Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a Court motion seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction pending more information. Nessel also released a statement:
To date, Enbridge has provided no explanation of what caused this damage and a woefully insufficient explanation of the current condition and safety of the pipeline as a result of this damage…We cannot rely on Enbridge to act in the best interests of the people of this State so I am compelled to ask the Court to order them to.”
As I’ve said before, Nessel gets it. She knows very well what everybody else knows: Enbridge is never going to change. They literally can’t. They can’t even if the individuals who work for the company, like Mike Moeller, honestly would like to. That’s because Enbridge exists only to do one thing and they’re going to keep doing that thing until someone tells them they can’t. The only interest they’ll ever act in favor of is their bottom line. That’s why it’s long past time for the Governor, who thankfully supports Nessel’s latest action, to continue to pretend there’s an amicable solution to the Line 5 problem. It’s long past time for her to finally take decisive action.
At this point, there is really only thing to ask of Enbridge: just spare us the bullshit.
by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 19, 2020 |
Enbridge has been fined again. This week, Enbridge announced that it has reached a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to comply with safety-related measures stipulated in the U.S. Department of Justice consent decree Enbridge agreed to in 2017 as a result of the Marshall spill.
You can read the whole thing here. The fines totaling $6.7 million are the result, among other things, of Enbridge’s failure “to complete timely identification and evaluation of thousands of ‘shallow dent’ features on Lakehead System pipelines” and to take measures to repair or mitigate those defects in their pipelines.
Sound familiar?
This is exhausting. I’ve been writing this same blog post for 8 full years now. I’m frankly tired of it. How many times do I have to point out that Enbridge, despite all of its corporate public relations rhetoric, never learns from its mistakes? How many times do I need to document how they repeat precisely the same (unsafe) behavior over and over? How many times do I have to rehearse the fact that when they get busted they prevaricate and dissemble and make laughable excuses like a teenager caught sneaking peppermint schnapps from the liquor cabinet?
First, let’s be very clear about one thing: failing to take swift action to correct defects on a pipeline is very serious business. By now, everyone reading this knows that is exactly what led to the disastrous spill in Marshall. We all know that Enbridge knew, for years, about cracks and other defects in Line 6B but they did not take measures to fix those problems. We also know the result: a million gallons of diluted bitumen in the Kalamazoo River.
Secondly, fast forward to 2017, when Enbridge once again tried to hide or downplay pipeline defects, this time with Line 5. Enbridge knew about damaged protective coating on Line 5 for years before divulging that very important and very serious information to Michigan state officials
Thirdly, Enbridge’s response in these instances is always grudging compliance and excuse-making. Never do they take responsibility. The present example of this is so extraordinary I need to tell you about it in some detail. Please stick with me:
Although Enbridge has agreed to pay the $6-plus million in fines, they steadfastly refuse to concede that they have committed any safety violations. Instead, in a truly stunning letter to the EPA, Enbridg’s attorneys shamelessly attempt to write the whole thing off as no big deal, insisting that “all of these alleged violations were largely administrative in nature and did not result in any safety issues, missed integrity risk reduction activities, loss of product or any damage to the environment.” So, for example, when the EPA fines Enbridge for failing to report crack features in a timely manner, Enbridge says it was because of “an administrative oversight.” And when the EPA fines Enbridge for completing their Threat Integration for Line 3 a few days late, Enbridge shrugs it off as “an administrative error.” And on and on and on. No parent of a child would ever accept such bullshit.
But two things are worth recognizing here with regard to these “administrative” matters. First, this kind of administration is incredibly important. Enbridge seems to want the EPA and the rest of us to believe that because these things are all “administrative in nature” they are of no particular concern. But there are important reasons for these rules; there are important reasons that regulatory bodies require, say, the timely reporting of crack defects in pipelines: it’s one way to assure that those defects get corrected before there is a problem, like a massive spill. Applying for a driver’s license and keeping your auto insurance updated are also “administrative in nature,” but they are important. Administration is prevention.
Secondly, if a corporation is making that many “administrative errors” isn’t that a sign of some deeper problems? Sure, anybody can make one mistake. There are a hundred reasons why someone might make an auto insurance payment late; insurance companies even make allowances for such things. But if I pay my insurance bill late over and over, eventually my insurer will probably terminate my coverage. And make no mistake about it, Enbridge has a long history of exhibiting troubling patterns of behavior, a long history of just these kinds of systemic problems. Have we already forgotten about the NTSB’s description of the company’s “culture of deviance” from safety protocols? How can Enbridge expect to earn the public’s trust if they’re so sloppy and lax with regard to “administrative” matters?
Finally– and this is the most important part– Enbridge insists to EPA over and over that these administrative problems “did not result in any safety issues, missed integrity risk reduction activities, loss of product or any damage to the environment.” But that argument is outlandish. To extend my analogy, just because I drove my car home safely without a license or insurance does not mean I should have been driving the car. And I definitely shouldn’t be driving it while drinking, which is basically what Enbridge is doing by continuing to operate pipelines with known defects. Just because nothing happened this time doesn’t mean it won’t. Again, that’s the whole point of all of this: prevention.
Frankly, I don’t know how EPA can abide Enbridge’s cavalier attitude toward these things, especially given the way Enbridge has thumbed its nose at the EPA in the past. But one thing is for sure: this troubling behavior, these lapses, these failures to take responsibility, this disturbing pattern of behavior should be given serious consideration when it comes to regulatory approvals (or disapprovals) of Line 3 and Line 5. Enbridge calls them “administrative errors”; I call them “evidence.”
