Enbridge Fined Again: where’s the outrage?
Another day, another hour of my time wasted typing up the same blog post I’ve been typing up for more than 8 years now. Enbridge, once again, has been fined for a series of safety violations. Ace reporter Mike Soraghan has the story at E&E News. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall and who knows whether any other outlets will even bother to pick it up. This sort of thing happens with so much frequency when it comes to Enbridge that everybody seems completely numb to it. We’re all expected just to shrug our shoulders, look away, and move along. Meanwhile, Enbridge gets to start construction on Line 3 in Minnesota despite the ethical opposition of tribal and citizen groups. And here in Michigan, people who are supposed to be stewards of the public trust not only take seriously Enbridge’s absurd tunnel plan, they actively work to support it.
The violations, if you’re interested in the details, involve all sorts of things: failing to do a required review after a leak, not following up on aerial patrols, and in one case, federal regulators discovered exposed sections of pipe that lacked appropriate anti-corrosion coating.
These are all serious matters; if they weren’t, there wouldn’t be regulations that are supposed to enforce compliance with them. But what does Enbridge have to say about this? The same old bullshit. Rather than taking responsibility, they wave it off as no big deal and blow the same smoke they always blow:
“It’s important to note that none of the findings show or pose an immediate safety concern,” said Enbridge spokesman Michael Barnes. “Enbridge takes our responsibility to operate pipelines in a safe manner seriously, and we are committed to working with our regulator, PHMSA.”
In other words, “nothing to see here,” Enbridge says, again. But this enforcement action from PHMSA– a notoriously toothless agency, it must be said– comes just months after the EPA fined Enbridge $6 million for a bunch of things that Enbridge likewise treated as No Big Deal. PHMSA has proposed $122,000 in fines, which is itself a joke. That kind of money is lying around as loose change in the break room at Enbridge’s corporate office. If you open your windows, you can probably hear Enbridge executives and attorneys giggling over this right now.
Which is simply to point out that there are no real consequences for these repeated failures and violations. They’re unlikely to be taken up, for example, in any of the legal proceedings Enbridge is currently embroiled in with the state of Michigan. A discussion of this pattern of violations, part and parcel with Enbridge’s pattern of dishonesty, surely won’t be admissible in the MPSC proceedings, which are hamstrung by the narrow framework Enbridge successfully imposed upon those proceedings. And none of this will make any impression whatsoever on the gullible shills in the Michigan legislature who hungrily swallow whatever hollow claptrap Enbridge serves up to them about how they’ve learned so many lessons since 2010.
But Rebecca Craven of the Pipeline Safety Trust isn’t having it:
“If this has been their dramatic improvement since then that makes me more worried.”
There are maybe a handful of people on the entire planet who know more about these matters than does Rebecca Craven. You’d think people might want to listen up. But will anybody else, most importantly anybody in a position of authority in Minnesota or Michigan or Wisconsin, share her worry? Will anyone else share my outrage? I’ve about exhausted my supply.