We spent a little time skimming the transcript of Tuesday’s MPSC hearing on phase 2. It consists largely of Enbridge attorney Michael Asthon insisting– by way of objections to questions asked to Enbridge employees– that almost nothing whatsoever is relevant to the proceedings; not Marshall, not the NTSB report, not anything pertaining to phase one, and on and on. And when it comes to Marshall and the NTSB report, Administrative Law Judge Teresa Sheets agrees with Ashton:
In addition, I think that anything that did happen with the previous rupture in the Marshall area is not relevant to these proceedings. That is a very specific incident; the correction, corrective action orders addressed what happened, addressed steps that needed to be taken, et cetera, including that which led us to these proceedings, because they I think very clearly directed Enbridge to replace rather than repair, and I’ve said that from the beginning.
Of course, we understand that this is a legal question pertaining to the particular charge of the MPSC and the powers granted to it by the state. Yet this just reveals one of the many problems with the approval process, since in any rational world, the idea that Marshall isn’t relevant to these proceedings is a complete absurdity.
We were also struck by this little exchange between Project Manager Thomas Hodge and intervenors’ attorney Gary Field:
Q: Mr. Hodge, when dealing with landowners from time to time, and to the extent disputes arise, does Enbridge have some type of internal appeal process where the landowners can escalate the dispute to a higher level, or does that not exist?
A: We have various informational packages out there to the landowners that have 800 numbers they can call and leave messages on, you know, we’ve made, we’ve had public meetings where we’ve met with landowners and I’ve handed out my cards, Mark Sitek has handed out his cards at these meetings. As far as a formal appeals, or process for them to escalate a dispute with our field land agents, no, I can’t say that we have a formal process, but we try to get enough information out there to the landowners that they know they have an avenue to escalate the issue if they are not getting satisfaction from the land agent that they are dealing with. I would expect them to, you know, they — these land agents have a supervisor in the field, so I would hope that if there was a dispute that was having, was reaching the point where it was unable to be resolved, it would progress in a logical sequence up the chain until we can get it settled.
Q: But I take it your advice would be to call Mr. Sitek if all else fails?
A: No, that would not be my advice.
We have no idea what these public meeting are; there certainly weren’t any over in our area. And we can tell you first-hand that it is not at all easy to move “up the chain” to discuss one’s individual situation. With the exception of our contact with Mark Sitek– which Tom Hodge here advises against– our attempts to contact anyone “above” our land agent were more or less completely ignored (yes, we’re talking about you, Mike Bradburn and Doug Aller).
And, as we’ve pointed out several times now, we were similarly ignored by Enbridge reps at last week’s PS Trust conference, a fact all the more disturbing in contrast to the way that other companies handled landowner criticisms. In a follow up to the conference we received just yesterday, our new friends and fellow panelists Jon and Bonnie Kruse report that:
. . . we had a serious conversation with a senior TransCanada land agent at the Conference. He came up to us twice. He said he never wanted to sit thru another hour like he experienced during the Landowners presentation. We gave him and Vern Meier specific suggestiions on what they can do to establish positive landowner relations so they would not experience such an hour again. We told them—See the Landowner as your partner, approach the landowner as you would a partner, treat the landowner as your partner, engage the landowner as your partner in the process from siting, thru construction, and reclamantion. Respect the landowner as your partner—-make phone and return phone calls, make appointments, and be consistent.
This is, of course, excellent advice. And it’s not that different from what Enbridge claims to do. But as so many of us can attest, their words are one thing; their actions quite another.
Federal suit: The latest news on the POLAR lawsuit in federal court is that Brandon Township, which on Nov. 5 filed a motion to join the suit, has also filed a motion to expedite a ruling on their filing (as of now, they are still not an official party to the suit). In response, Enbridge has filed a reply– a rather whiny one, in our opinion– suggesting that Brandon for some reason deliberately waited until the last minute to intervene. They also suggest that Brandon’s intervention has no bearing on Enbridge’s motion to dismiss the case, a motion based on the idea (as we’ve discussed before) that POLAR lacks standing. It will come as no surprise that we think both of those arguments are exceedingly weak. And reading Enbridge’s half-hearted response filing, it seems to us that they also know they’re weak. But we’ll see.
Phase 2: Things are moving on phase 2 of the Line 6B project. When we returned home from the fantastic Pipeline Safety Trust conference late last week, we found a glossy new full-color newsletter from Enbridge providing lots of details on the project (in fairness, more details, perhaps, than we’ve ever seen before). We’ve got things to say about this interesting publication; we’ll get to it anon. The project is still making its way through the MPSC process; a hearing with witnesses was held just this week. One thing this means is that it’s high time to reach out to landowners along this next phase, to share information, and organize a little. If you happen to be on phase 2, perhaps you could drop us a note backchannel; we’d like to find ways to get in touch with as many affected landowners as possible. Stay tuned for more on this.
Ad series: We haven’t forgotten about last week’s Free Press ad. We’re sort of excited about the response we’re working on.
Photos: We’ll post some pictures from our recent reconnaissance tour soon. We’re still waiting to receive your entries for the photo contest (which isn’t really a contest, of course!). We don’t know exactly what’s happening up and down the line these days, but we can report that there has been no construction activity at all on our property in several days now. Things appear to be at something of a standstill. We suspect this is because agreements haven’t been reached with a number of nearby landowners. At this point, it looks as if Enbridge is installing a pipe to nowhere from nowhere.
We kicked off our series of reports on last week’s Pipeline Safety Trust conference in New Orleans by describing some of the response from attendees to our presentation (if you haven’t seen it yet, you can still watch it here). In that report, we described Enbridge’s odd (but ultimately not surprising) snubbing of us. We’ve been mulling this over and can’t quite decide if it’s because we are simply insignificant to them (this is likely; we have no illusions about our importance) or because we’ve become a slight menace to them (probably less likely) or because they really just don’t want to hear from any of their critics (in our view, by far the most likely option).
One reason we think the last explanation is the most likely is because we learned at the conference that other companies do want to hear it– or at least they are willing to listen. Craig Pierson and Randy Stansberry from Marathon Pipe Line, in particular, struck us as quite sincere about wanting to take a hard look at their own practices. We thought the same of of Francisco Salguero from Pacific Gas & Electric. And we know that Vern Meijer from TransCanada actually took the time to sit down with Bonnie and Jon Kruse after their rather scathing presentation on how TransCanada has treated landowners out west.
We mention Marathon, TransCanada, and PG&E again because one of the things we learned at the conference is just how much these companies are inevitably linked together, rather than simply separate and in competition with one another. For instance, a refrain among regulators at the conference was the importance of companies’ willingness to share information when it comes to safety– whether that information is data, best practices, or technology. Claudia Bradley from Canada’s National Energy Board stressed the importance of sharing, as did Mark Rosekind of the NTSB. In fact, Rosekind made the point quite forcefully, almost as an injunction: “You don’t compete on safety!” he said. So while it may make for good advertisement for a company like Enbridge to claim (as they do) that “Enbridge is recognized as an industry leader in pipeline safety and integrity,” Rosekind’s point was that no one (or, if you prefer, everyone) should be the industry leader in safety.
A similar need for a confluence of interests (or so one would hope) was implicit in Carl Weimer’s (and others’) discussion of the strange and disturbing story of how industry standards become incorporated into federal regulations. Because they often rely on consensus, industry standards may not always reflect best practices when it comes to matters of safety (since standards may need to be watered down in order to achieve consensus). Within such a system, it’s not hard to imagine how a handful of bad actors– who place self interest ahead of safety– can actually work against outcomes that are in the best interests of everyone.
The same holds true, we believe, when it comes to the treatment of landowners. One of the things we said to those executives from other companies (and we weren’t telling them anything they didn’t already knew) is that Enbridge’s bad behavior, its alienating actions, aren’t just bad for Enbridge and bad for the landowners who are forced to bear the brunt of them. They’re bad for the whole industry. They’re bad for Marathon and PG&E and TransCanada. After all, the general public (understandably) doesn’t much distinguish between one pipeline company and the next. So when Enbridge violates a local ordinance, deals unfairly with a landowner, or ignores its own safety protocols, those actions reflect upon every pipeline company; they tarnish everybody’s reputation. Frankly, if I were Craig Pierson, I’d be furious with Patrick Daniel and I’d be on the phone with Al Monaco telling him to get his house in order. Enbridge may not want to listen to ordinary people like us, but we suspect they’d listen to their industry peers.
We live in a crazy world. The Precision Pipeline flag blunder story received a fair amount of attention yesterday. After the Detroit Free Press printed the photo, a handful of other news outlets picked it up (for instance, here and here and here) and it made some rounds on Facebook and probably got some tweets as well. There were even a few new details: evidently, it wasn’t a corporate flag, but a Penn State flag, placed there by a couple of employees– themselves veterans, according to a Precision representative.
We confess to some misgivings about all of this. Our original post was meant to be cheeky. Aside from the breach of U.S. flag etiquette, which probably ought not to be dismissed, we just found the image an amusing metaphor for some of the disregard and thoughtlessness Enbridge and some of its contractors have displayed toward landowners, local municipalities, and the citizens of Michigan– things we’ve been documenting with grave seriousness for months. If it were up to us, we’d much prefer to see this story or this one or this one (to name a few) receiving lots of attention.
Still, it bothers us if it is true that the persons responsible for raising the Penn State flag may face disciplinary action, as the Free Press headline states. That would be an unfortunate unintended consequence of this and we would regret having a hand in it; surely those men meant no real harm– even though it was clearly not a good idea to hang that flag the way they did.
Furthermore, it is probably also true that this little dust-up will look to Enbridge like another example of how they just can’t get a fair shake, how their every little move (or even moves they don’t themselves make) becomes fodder for critics looking to bash them at every turn. We can understand that. It’s surely one reason why so many Enbridge representatives– Denise Hamsher at the Pipeline Safety Trust conference last week is a case in point– often seem so defensive.
Yet Enbridge also has to take responsibility for creating the atmosphere of mistrust and antagonism that causes people to view their every move (and the moves of their associates) with such suspicion. That’s the consequence of their mishandling (to put it charitably) of Marshall, of their attempt to steamroll their way through this replacement project, of their flouting of local ordinances and their dismissal of local authority, of their unfair treatment of landowners, of their violations of line list agreements, and of the dozens of evasive, misleading, and counterfactual statements in public and in private from their spokespersons and ROW agents. Those are the things that, ultimately, generated this little flag flap. As Beth Duman herself has said before, if it weren’t for all of that bad behavior, we wouldn’t be paying attention to Enbridge or (Precision Pipeline) at all.
Manshum said the company respects Veterans Day and has many veterans on its staff in the U.S. Enbridge is based in Canada.
We spoke with reporter Eric Lawrence yesterday also but didn’t make the cut for the story. Our remarks echoed Beth’s: we just thought the flag mistake served as an apt metaphor for the way pipeline companies place their own interests ahead of all others.
In addition to the indefatigable Beth Duman, we would also like to thank our original source for this little story: a neighbor of ours who happened to drive by that site last week. His tip (and befuddlement at what he saw) started this whole thing.
So preoccupied with other things (mainly, the PS Trust conference), we totally forgot to post an update on last week’s hearing in federal court. You may recall that the hearing was set to resolve the issue of whether POLAR has “standing” to sue Enbridge for noncompliance with municipal ordinances, state statutes, and the Michigan Constitution. It’s a tricky procedural question– but also what’s referred to as a “threshold” question. If POLAR can’t cross the threshold issue, they can’t enter the room where the more substantive questions– like local consent– reside (and can be addressed).
Just prior to the hearing, however, there was (in our view) a game changer: Brandon Township filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit. This is important because there is no question at all as to whether Brandon Township has standing– a municipality most certainly has standing to sue to enforce its own ordinances.
We were unable to attend the hearing, but we’ve been debriefed and can tell you this much: Judge Cleland acknowledged the Brandon motion to intervene, but he hadn’t read it and so did not rule (on the question of whether to allow the intervention; we don’t see any reason why he would not allow it, but who knows?). The hearing on POLAR’s standing then proceeded.
According to all accounts from the POLAR side, the hearing went very well. POLAR attorney Bill Tomblin apparently did quite a bang up job, while Enbridge attorneys seemed a relatively ineffectual and bumbling. The POLAR team and its supporters left the hearing feeling reasonably optimistic and Judge Cleland said he would issue a ruling in a week. So we should know something more in the next few days.
We have no idea what will happen from here, but we’ll hazard a guess (based on our own observations and impressions): Judge Cleland doesn’t want this case in his court. He would prefer not to rule on it one way or the other, especially since the real substantive issues at stake are local and state, not federal, matters. So he’s looking for a reason to get it out of his courtroom. That could mean a dismissal (which could be bad for POLAR), but it could also mean– and this is what we’re predicting– kicking it back to Oakland County court, which in our view, could be quite good for POLAR. Please don’t hold us to any of that!
We’re continuing to play catch-up with all of our unfinished business around here, while also re-visiting our notes from the Pipeline Safety Trust conference (the subject of our recently launched new series!). Among other things, we’re still scratching our heads over Enbridge contractor Precision Pipeline’s baffling flag faux-pas and we’re a little worked up over yesterday’s Enbridge Freep ad (teaser: they found a happy landowner!). We also drove around a bit this weekend and took some construction pictures– since entries to our photo contest are few and far between (but it’s not too late to submit! Please?!). More on all of that is coming up.
Meanwhile, it’s high time we wrapped up our series on our conversation with Enbridge Vice President Mark Sitek. We had a second call with him on Monday and while it, too, was candid and respectful, we’re not sure it was terribly productive. We haven’t quite given up on Mark yet, but we’re less hopeful now about the potential fruits of this exchange than we were a few weeks ago.
But we can start with one positive note: Mark assured me that Enbridge is going to change the indemnification language they present to landowners. The new language will not be two-way indemnification (which we’ve expressed lots of concerns about before), but only a one-way indemnification (that is, Enbridge will indemnify landowners, not the other way around). As an example– we don’t know if this is precisely what they’ll use– here is the one-way indemnification clause in the contract we signed (after objecting to the original two-way language):
Lessees agree to indemnify and hold Lessor harmless against any and all claims, demands, and causes of action, intentional misconduct of its employees, agents, representatives, contractors, subcontractors or invitees.
Now, this change is undoubtedly good news and it does show that Enbridge is capable of a certain degree of responsiveness. We are grateful to Mark for looking into the matter and taking action. He deserves credit for that. At the same time, we do have to qualify our praise on this point since (1) this is a pretty modest action, an easy step for Enbridge to take; and (2) Mark still refused to concede that there was any real problem with the original language other than that it was “confusing” (as opposed to an attempt to shift a portion of liability onto unsuspecting homeowners, as we’ve always maintained). Nevertheless, it is a little step and we’ll take it. And we thank Mark Sitek for it sincerely.
As for other matters, we’ll just say that in general it seemed to us that Mark demonstrated what we have already described as Enbridge’s general unwillingness to honestly, soberly, and self-critically reflect upon its actions and practices or to consider how they look, not from the perspective of Enbridge, but from the perspective of landowners. We believe that unwillingness– perhaps it’s stubbornness– is absolutely endemic to Enbridge corporate culture.
For instance, at a certain point in each of our conversations with Mark, he set forth a kind of bottom line: the fact is, he told us in our last conversation (as I recall, we were talking about compensation for “disturbance and inconvenience”) that Enbridge owns easement rights on most of these properties, rights they have owned for 40 years. And the further fact is that those rights allow them the use of adjacent land (i.e., temporary work space).
Now, on the one hand, this is an indisputable fact (although owning easement rights doesn’t mean they can simply do whatever they want), a fact that we have never once questioned in any way. On the other hand, as we said to Mark at the time, if that’s Enbridge’s bottom line–“we have rights and we’re going to use those rights to do what we want”– that’s fine. Then just say so. But don’t then also pretend that you’re devoted to being a good neighbor, that you want to cultivate good relationships, that you are committed to openness and honesty, etc, etc. Because if you say all that latter stuff, we are going to expect it. And expecting it, we are going to be disappointed and frustrated and call you out when you fail to live up to it.
In fact, if anybody has been unfair to Jennifer Smith– and to her fellow spokespersons, PR people, and marketers– it is Enbridge itself. As we said when we first mentioned her, we think it’s probably the case that the Jennifer Smiths who work for Enbridge have no idea about what’s in the agreements presented to landowners or what what actually goes on in negotiations between landowners and ROW agents. Instead, what Enbridge’s Jennifer Smiths know is what Enbridge tells them to say. And when those things turn out not to be true, it’s the spokespersons– because they’re the ones saying it– who have to take the heat for peddling misinformation. Which means that Enbridge is hanging its own people out to dry.
We don’t know whether our interactions with Mark have reached a conclusion. Graciously, he invited us to contact him in the future if we need to do so. We’ll also say that we think that Mark is a genuinely nice guy; we’re sure he’s quite good at his job. But we also think that he is a product of what we’ve been diagnosing as the peculiar malady that afflicts Enbridge culture. Consider this point of contrast: after our PS Trust talk this week, executives of Marathon Pipe Line told us that the story of our experience caused them to think, “is that us?” That is, we gave them reason to take a hard look at themselves and their practices, to consider whether they were actually living up to their own stated values. However, never once– and this includes our exchanges with Mark– have we heard the same from Enbridge. Instead, all we have ever heard from them is, “that’s not us.” Unlike Marathon and others, they remain steadfastly, intractably unwilling to take a hard look at themselves.
Here’s an interesting photo on this Veteran’s Day. The photo was taken over in Livingston County. Precision Pipeline is Enbridge’s general contractor for the Line 6B project.
Anybody notice anything troubling here? We think it’s an apt metaphor.
Now that we’ve returned from the Pipeline Safety Trust conference– we’ve already launched our new series of reports on it!– we hope to try and catch up on some overdue posts. First up is the most recent ad Enbridge ran in the Detroit Free Press (and elsewhere, we believe). You might recall that we found it rather difficult to procure a copy of this ad (though we finally decided to reject the notion that there was a conspiracy afoot to prevent us from seeing it). We still have not gotten our hands on it. Fortunately, our wonderful reader Linda supplied us with a description and some copy. [SEE UPDATE BELOW.]
But first, a small item of note. In our first report on the PS Trust conference, we mentioned that there was one exception to the total Enbridge snub of us at the conference. We still plan to post a full version of that story in another conference report. But we will say here that the single Enbridge representative who did speak to us was Director of US Corporate and Business Communications Terri Larson. We had some minor apprehensions about the substance of what Terri said to us (and we said as much to her), but based on our brief interaction, we liked her. She struck us as sincere and we very much appreciated her willingness to engage us; she invited us to do the same. And we will.
We mention that here because it turns out that Terri is one of the people responsible for the series of Enbridge ads we’ve been writing about. (And given how critical we’ve been of them, we think that makes it all the more commendable that Terri approached us.)
At any rate, here is the description of the ad we received from Linda:
Huge picture of beautiful landscape with pipe snaking through it. Headlines: Line 6B: ENGINEERED RELIABILITY……Enbridge is replacing segments of its Line 6B pipeline that runs through Michigan and Indiana to ensure the continued secure supply of energy resources through this key transportation system. Throughout this process, we want you, our neighbors, to know that careful planning is going into engineering and constructing this system.
These pipeline segments will meet or exceed regulatory requirements with design features including:
-Increased wall thickness from the current .250 inch to a minimum of .375 and up to .625 inch under wetlands and water crossings.
-35 remotely controlled electric valves, in addition to valves at pump station sites.
-Higher strength steel and state of the art fusion bonded epoxy coating to help inhibit external corrosion.
Based on this description, we’d have to say that this is the least objectionable of the ads that have run so far. At the same time, you’d surely be disappointed if we didn’t find something to which we object. So, briefly, here goes:
We’ll let the “our neighbors” bit go just this once; that’s well-covered ground at this point. Instead, we’ll focus on some other things we’ve said (or asked) before. That is, all this stuff sounds great, especially since most of us know very little about these technical matters. But a closer look might give one a bit of pause. For example, telling us the number of remotely controlled electric valves (if one even knows what they are) is close to meaningless unless one first knows, say, what a standard number of valves is for a particular length of pipe. (This is the sort of thing that a bunch of the tech-heads at the PS Trust conference, like our friends Robert Whitesides and Michael Holmstrom likely know.)
We could say similar things about the other items. After all, the list really raises more questions than it answers. For instance, why the range– a rather wide range– of wall thicknesses at wetlands and water crossings? What thicknesses will be used at which crossings? Why and how is that determined? How would anyone who wanted that information find it out?
The same might go for the statement about how “these pipeline segments will meet or exceed regulatory requirements.” We’re not told which of the listed design features exceed regulatory requirements (and it’s not even 100% clear that the regulatory requirements we’re talking about here are U.S. requirements). In fact, this very question– about which federal requirements the design of this pipeline exceeds– is one that we stood up and asked at the now-infamous Brandon Township “workshop.” Perhaps you’ve heard that it’s now been more than two months since that workshop and Enbridge has STILL not answered that question– or any others.
So here is what we’re going to do. We’re just going to write to Terri Larson and ask her this one simple question: specifically, which design features of the new pipe exceed which regulations? We will report back what we learn.
Just one final point, one that we have also made before: we have little doubt all of these technological improvements are surely a very good thing (how could they not be compared to a 40 year old pipe?!). But it bears remembering that at Marshall, technology was a relatively small part of the problem. Technological failures didn’t make for disaster in Marshall; human failures did.
——-
[UPDATE: Thanks to our friend Nate Pavlovic who sent us a photo of the ad last night. We especially like its pastoralism, which almost makes it seem as if the pipeline is a natural feature of the landscape itself, like the trees and the grass. But it puts us in mind of the great Wallace Stevens poem, “Anecdote of the Jar”– just substitute “pipe” for “jar” and “Michigan” for “Tennessee”:
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.]
In lots of ways, the Pipeline Safety Trust conference was a humbling experience. It didn’t take long– about a minute into Carl Weimer’s opening remarks, in fact– to realize just how little we know compared to all the smart, knowledgeable people in our midst. We learned a great deal and came away with so much to think about. Fortunately, the PS Trust has made it possible to go back and revisit things with their terrific webcast– available here.
We need to mention one little unfortunate note about the webcast, however: the best session of the conference (in our view)– the Environmental panel featuring Beth Wallace, Anthony Swift, and Gabe Scott– wasn’t filmed. We have a hunch as to why (it’s no fault of PS Trust’s!) and will discuss it in another installment in the series, one devoted entirely to that panel. Yes, that’s a teaser.
For our first installment, however, we’re going to talk just a little bit about ourselves, begging forgiveness. If you missed our presentation, you can still watch it here. (And don’t neglect our fellow panelists Emily Krafjack and Bonnie and Jon Kruse— they were excellent. To regular readers of this blog, there wasn’t a great deal that was new in our talk and so we’re not going to rehash it. Instead, we want to say a few words about the aftermath:
More than a few people approached us afterwards– that afternoon and evening and the next day. Precisely who approached us and why, we think, is quite telling. Here’s a rundown of some of the folks who found what we had to say useful or thought-provoking:
Francisco Salguero, Executive Manager at Pacific Gas and Electric. Francisco deals with public awareness and landowner relations. He was the first person to approach us to ask a question that nearly blew us away. After noting that his job entails working with landowners and the public, he said, “what can I do better?” And he meant it. We had a terrific exchange.
Craig Pierson, President of Marathon Pipe Line, LLC. Over beignets at Cafe du Monde, Craig said that our presentation had the contingent from Marathon all abuzz, asking themselves, “is that us? are we treating our stakeholders that way?” And already– the very night of our talk– Craig and his team were talking about ways that they could find answers to those questions and adjust their practices accordingly. Wow.
Randy Stansberry, Region Manager, Marathon Pipe Line. Randy approached me and reiterated some of what we discussed with Craig Pierson. We got him thinking, he said, “are we living up to our values?” To try and get some answers to that questions, Randy described their plan to contact landowners for focus groups in order to gather feedback. This was, you can imagine, tremendously heartening.
Vern Meijer, Vice President, U.S. Operations, TransCanada. Vern also thanked us and noted that our presentation caused him to think about his company’s treatment of landowners. Incidentally, we found ourselves sitting next to Vern during the final session of the conference. As landowners and other advocates spoke, he was actively taking notes!
We spoke with a number of others as well. But these four are the main industry reps who went out of their way to speak with us– something they certainly did not need to do (after all, who are we to them?). We plan to follow up with them and, in some small way, cultivate beneficial relationships with them.
Now we’re sure that by this point, our readers, a perceptive bunch, can see where this is going: PG&E, Marathon, TransCanada. We did NOT spend our 15 minutes talking about the ways these companies treat landowners. So it would be reasonable for you to expect us at this point to recount the conversations we had with people from Enbridge or to tell you about the productive dialogue with Enbridge attendees that our presentation initiated or to describe to you how the conference helped extend and build upon the conversations we’ve had with Mark Sitek.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you any of that. And the reason I can’t tell you any of that is because the Enbridge representatives at the conference– there were, we believe, five of them– all but ignored us. With just one exception, not exactly related to the primary theme of our talk (we plan to make that encounter the subject of another installment of this series), the Enbridge representatives in attendance did not seek us out for more conversation. They did not thank us for our perspective. They didn’t ask a question, offer a point of clarification or even of rebuttal. Unlike the folks from PG&E, Marathon, and TransCanada, the Enbridge attendees could not be bothered to talk with us at all. In fact, they didn’t say a single word to us.
Actually, that’s not strictly true. There was our brief encounter with our old friend Larry Springer– you remember him as the guy who singlehandedly sparked a series of posts a while back. Standing in line for lunch on Thursday, we happened to see someone in front of us with an iPad, upon which was displayed this very blog. Unable to contain ourselves, we politely interrupted just to say, “hey, that’s our blog,” to which the gentleman with the iPad replied, “Yes, I know”– and then turned away before we even had a chance introduce ourselves and engage in what one would expect to be the ordinary pleasantries of such a moment. But he was turned toward us long enough to afford a quick glimpse of his name badge. Yes, that’s right, Larry Springer actually– and quite rudely, if we’re being honest– snubbed us.
Now, we’re not much bothered that Larry Springer snubbed us. But one would have thought that, say, Lorraine Little would have introduced herself. After all, she’s one of the people at Enbridge we’ve tried (and failed) to engage. Still, we’re not that bothered that she didn’t speak with us either. No, what really bothers us is this:
All of those people from Enbridge at the conference who couldn’t be bothered to speak with us? They’re all from the PR department. I mean, Craig Pierson is the actual President of Marathon Pipe Lines. Vern Meijer is the Vice President of operations at TransCanada. These are people who make real decisions, people who are in a position to institute real changes, people whose jobs are not primarily devoted to spin. The Enbridge attendees, by contrast: all spin doctors.
What’s so baffling about this is that the conference actually presented Enbridge with an opportunity to prove us (a little bit) wrong. They had a chance to show that they really are willing to listen carefully to landowners, that they really are interested in open and honest communication, that they really do, as their values state, “take the time to understand the perspective of others.” They had a chance to cause us to come home and type up a blog post praising them for treating us respectfully, a post describing our new Enbridge friends. They could have given us cause to write an entry expressing gratitude toward them just as we’ve expressed gratitude toward Salguero, Pierson, Stansberry, and Meijer above. They could have given us a tale of a positive encounter with Enbridge to bring to our readers. And the truth is– perhaps they simply don’t believe this–we would LOVE to tell that tale. But Enbridge (stubbornly? willfully? deliberately? we have no idea) failed to take advantage of that opportunity.
Instead– and it gives us no real joy to gloat about this–they simply confirmed so many of the things we’ve said about them time and again– the very things we said in our presentation. They once again showed themselves unwilling to engage openly and honestly with stakeholders unless on their own narrow terms. They once again showed themselves unwilling to take a sober look at their conduct and practices and engage in a bit of serious introspection. They once again showed that even matters as vitally important as landowner relations and pipeline safety are to them not much more than p.r. matters.
Oh boy, have we got things to write about! We were already backed up with need-to-get-to material (court hearings, telephone conversations, permitting processes, advertisements, Indiana matters– and more). But we learned and experienced so much at our first Pipeline Safety Trust conference that now we’re really in the woods. It’s going to take us a while to sort through our notes and say all that we’ve got to say. Which means, of course: a new series!
In lieu of a first entry in that series (coming up, we hope, right quick), here’s a quick rundown of some (not all) of the highlights of our conference experience (in random order):
It’s day two at the Pipeline Safety Trust Conference. Our head is still spinning a little from yesterday– both because we’ve learned so much, met so many interesting people, spent some time with the truly fabulous (smart, interesting, good-hearted, dedicated, welcoming) Michigan contingent and because it appears that our presentation was quite well received. More details on that will be coming soon. If you missed our presentation (and the excellent presentations of our fellow panelists), the video should be posted at the conference website soon, probably later today.
We’ll be posting a lot about our experience in the coming week– hopefully starting later today. There’s also lots from Michigan to discuss as well– not least the news from the POLAR hearing in federal court on Wednesday.
But first, we need to digest our belly full of beignets from last night. On that topic, we learned that nobody is as beignet-crazy as PS Trust Executive Director, Carl Weimer (himself a native Michigander). I mean, just look at the guy:
We’re at the Pipeline Safety Trust conference in New Orleans. Much of the conference–including our panel at 4 pm Central time– will be webcast live. You can watch by following this link.
Here is a terrible picture of PS Trust Executive Director Carl Weimer welcoming us to the conference. You can’t tell, but it’s a packed house.
There are two important events taking place this week:
Today at 2 pm, a second hearing will take place on the POLAR lawsuit in federal court. At issue is the question of “standing”— a question that we hope will be easily resolved now that Brandon Township has intervened in the suit. There is no question that they have standing to enforce their own ordinances– and, we would also think, the state Constitution.
The other event is the Pipeline Safety Trust conference. A large Michigan contingent will be attending as well as some good folks from Indiana. We’re looking forward to seeing some of our new friends in the flesh for the first time. We’re also hoping to have some productive conversations with Enbridge reps and lots of other people. We will, of course, post updates as time allows.
We’re told that most of the conference will be webcast live. Check the PS Trust link above for details. The landowners panel we’ll take part in is at 4 pm (central time) tomorrow (that’s Thursday).
Lastly, at present we have precisely ZERO entries for the photo contest. Come on, people! We know you’ve got cellphones and you’ve also got bulldozers and sections of pipe in your yards. Your fellow landowners want to see.
We received an astonishing and disturbing photograph from our friend Beth Duman today. And many of you have noticed that we’ve been posting lots of our own. Whatever else there is to be said about it, pipeline construction is rather extraordinary. And we don’t know about the rest of you, but we’re pretty interested in what everybody else’s properties look like these days.
So we’ve decided to get interactive and invite entries for our first (and possibly only) photo contest. (Well, there aren’t really any prizes nor any winners, but still: we can each judge in our own heads whose pictures are the most horrifying.
Everyone along Line 6B is welcome to submit an entry or two or three– as many as you like. And we won’t publish names or addresses or anything if you don’t want, though a rough location (county, township, and or street name) might be nice.
Violations of construction line list agreements were among the things we discussed yesterday with Mark Sitek. He seemed incredulous that such things were happening (except for one or two unfortunate mistakes). The latest from Christopher Behnan at the Livingston Daily Press & Argus suggests otherwise.
Oh, and we’ll award special bonus points to anybody who can make heads or tails of what Jason Manshum says here:
“The true test of any restoration work comes once the entire project is complete, so, during construction, patience is critical,” Manshum said in an email.
On the positive side, State Representative Bill Rogers has apparently decided to wake up from his slumber to become the first state elected official we know of to utter a single public word on behalf of landowners. Three cheers for Bill Rogers!
Yesterday, Brandon Township filed a “motion to intervene” and a “complaint in intervention” in the POLAR lawsuit in federal court. We have copies of both in our possession and, in our non-legal-professional opinion, the latter is excellent. Not only does it seek to enforce the local consent requirement of the Michigan constitution. It also seeks relief from the court (that is, an injunction against Enbridge) until Enbridge complies with the township’s Woodlands ordinance and other township ordinances.
If we can find some time, we’ll try to post more details. But there are plenty of other matters we also want to get to:
Apparently, we were mistaken about the absence of an Enbridge ad in the Free Press this week. We can’t explain why we couldn’t find it in the copy we bought, but we now have a transcript of it, though not the actual ad. You won’t be surprised to learn that we’ve got plenty to say about it (as we have with the others).
We’ll wrap up our series on our conversation with Enbridge VP Mark Sitek. In our view, our last conversation was on the whole very disappointing (and disheartening), though it was instructive in important ways. And there is one tiny piece of reasonably good news to report.
Just got off the telephone with Enbridge VP Mark Sitek again. We appreciate his time and the fact that he is at least willing to face an actual landowner and hear us out; we can’t say the same about everybody at Enbridge.
With that said, with one small exception, it was an unsatisfactory conversation. If we can stomach it, we’ll try to supply a bit of detail later. In the meantime, we’ll just say that we wish Mark would read and actually reflect on this. It remains, in our view, a very serious problem.
Among other things, we’re working this week on our upcoming presentation at the Pipeline Safety Trust conference, where we’re eager for the chance to talk with other landowners, regulators, and industry personnel. We’re looking forward to listening and learning. Perhaps we’ll even get a chance to meet and speak face to face with some Enbridge folks!
Of course, we’ve already spoken at some length with Enbridge Vice President Mark Sitek and we’re looking forward to a follow-up conversation or two. As regular readers know, we’ve been using that initial conversation as an opportunity to diagnose Enbridge, to try and articulate some of the underlying conditions that plague them and cause them to alienate stakeholders. We’ll likely talk about some of this in our presentation at the conference this week.
Just this morning, we were thinking about this alienation of stakeholders after reading the comments of Brandon Township Supervisor Kathy Thurman in the Brandon Citizen. Referring to a number of outstanding questions from a meeting with Enbridge representatives two months ago, Thurman said:
“Enbridge does not appear to be sincere in what they have communicated to the township. They have made statements that they will get information we have requested, but they have not produced it for us.”
Of course, we suspected at the time that Enbridge wasn’t altogether sincere– and more or less said as much in our report of that meeting. But the larger point here is that Enbridge seems to have serious problems with sincerity in general. That’s the topic of this installment in our series:
Part 4; Just tell the @&*! truth
We begin once again with one of Enbride’s stated core values: “Maintain truth in all interactions.” This, we believe, is excellent policy. We try very hard to adhere to it ourselves on this very blog. But based on our experience, this is another value that Enbridge fails to live up to. Indeed, there appears to be something deeply ingrained in Enbridge’s corporate culture that prevents them from simply being straightforward and forthright. We’re not saying that everything you hear from Enbridge is an outright falsehood. But we are saying that in far too many instances, you simply can’t take what Enbridge says at face value. And that’s a problem.
A ramble through our archives will reveal plenty of examples. But here is a quick rundown on some of them:
Statements and promises from ROW agents far too numerous to recount.
When asked by a reporter at the small-town Tri-City Times about the sudden appearance of pipes near Capac, Enbridge spokesperson said they were for integrity work on Line 5. We found that explanation suspicious. And it was. Manshum later provided a different explanation.
In one of their recent ads, Enbridge claimed that “landowner representatives” (ie, ROW agents) are our “neighbors.” But as far as we know, only one ROW agent working with landowners on this project has ever resided in Michigan. All the rest are from out of state.
Enbridge spokesperson Jennifer Smith recently claimed that Enbridge pays compensation for “disturbance and inconvenience.” We were led to believe by our ROW agent that Enbridge does not pay for these things.
Lands and Right-of-Way Project Manager Doug Aller said that he would call me. He has never called me.
Individually, perhaps any one of these things can be explained away or, in some cases, forgiven: ROW agents are misinformed or under pressure; Manshum just didn’t know what was going on in Capac; Doug Aller is a very, very busy guy; advertisements always shade the truth a little. Nevertheless, the fact is that all of these (arguably) little things– placed alongside plenty of big things– add up. They accrue. And taken cumulatively, they exhibit a pattern of behavior– a pattern that would cause anyone to wonder and worry.
So what does all of this have to do with Mark Sitek? We are not going to claim that he did not speak truthfully with us. We still think our conversation with him was conducted (mostly) in good faith. However, we do think that parts of our conversation illustrated the culture we described before: a culture that for some reason finds it hard just to be forthright. Let us explain.
One of the more interesting moments in our conversation was when I raised the issue of reactivation of the old pipe. This is (possibly) another example of an instance where one can’t quite be certain about Enbridge’s statements. Back in September, we heard four different representatives tell the Brandon board of trustees that they knew of no cases where Enbridge had reactivated an idle pipe. But then it took us no more than an hour or two to find three examples— one featured prominently on Enbridge’s own website. So were the Enbridge reps just not telling the truth? We don’t know. But we are left wondering.
An any rate, Mark was much more straightforward about the matter than almost anyone we’ve ever heard. He eventually conceded– after a while, not right away and with some reluctance– that it is possible they could use the deactivated pipe in the future, though they have no current plans to do so. In fact, he said Enbridge has the legal right to use that pipe.
Now, we don’t much care for that answer. I don’t want that pipe ever to be used again. But it is the truth. And we respect the truth. The problem, we pointed out to Mark, is that nobody EVER says that. The only thing anybody from Enbridge ever says about that question is “we have no plans” to put it back into use. And when they say that, they just sound evasive, less than truthful, certainly not forthright. Yet they seem to have no sense of this whatsoever. They seem unable to grasp the simple fact that people would much rather be dealt with truthfully and straightforwardly, even if the news is bad, than be dealt with evasively and misleadingly.
The same holds for the matter of the indemnification language we’ve discussed so many times before (most recently here). Mark disagreed with us about the meaning of that language (that may be the subject of a later post), though we maintained that its net effect was corrosive to relations. But when we suggested that Enbridge stop shopping that language to landowners, Mark expressed concern about what the “storyline” would be– that is, he was worried that changing that practice would simply allow people to say, “see, Enbridge admits that it’s been doing wrong.”
Yet that reply is the whole problem we’re describing here. Mark’s primary concern in this case was not with repairing relations with landowners, with doing what’s right, with confronting the truth of that indemnity language, with making changes that might benefit everybody. Rather, his concern was with Enbridge’s public image.
What he seemed not to understand– what Enbridge, in general, seems not to understand (just witness their series of recent ads)– is that this relentless devotion to its public image is precisely (paradoxically) the cause of its poor public image. Saying you’re a good neighbor isn’t the same as being a good neighbor. Saying you treat people fairly isn’t the same as treating people fairly. Saying you value the truth isn’t the same as just telling the @&*! truth.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: no local reporter has done such excellent work on the Line 6B story as Susan Bromley of the local paper the Brandon Citizen (why The Oakland Press, for instance, has completely ignored Brandon Township we will never understand). Bromley’s latest covers the exciting development of Brandon Township’s decision to take legal action to require Enbridge to comply with the state Constitution. Township Supervisor Kathy Thurman:
“We will be requiring that Enbridge obtain consent to cross our roads,” said Supervisor Kathy Thurman. “Article 7, section 29 of the Michigan state constitution says a utility needs to obtain local consent. They are running a pipeline, so in that regard, they are a utility… We also want them to abide by ordinances.”
And on the Brandon Township woodlands ordinance:
The woodlands ordinance states that no person of any nature, for whatever reason shall develop any parcel in the township without providing a survey of woodlands on such parcel. Enbridge has not complied with the ordinance.
And finally, something we’ve said here repeatedly:
“We definitely want to see the pipeline replaced, but we are concerned that it be done in the proper manner,” said Thurman. “Enbridge does not appear to be sincere in what they have communicated to the township. They have made statements that they will get information we have requested, but they have not produced it for us.”
One more thing we’ve said repeatedly: the courage and leadership of Thurman and the other Brandon board members is an inspiration.
Well, it’s as if the new Enbridge ad is deliberately avoiding me (kind of like Lands and Right-of-Way Project Manager Doug Aller…). We stopped at 8 or 10 different places today looking for a copy of the Detroit News– and totally struck out.
So if anybody has it and is able to scan or take a photo of it and send it our way, we would be extremely appreciative!
over the next four weeks we will use space in this newspaper to share project updates and to address some of [the public’s] questions. . .
And for two weeks, they (sort of) delivered on that promise. That is, they did use space in the newspaper–they just didn’t use it all that well and they didn’t really address any questions. Instead, they gave us more marketing spin and predictable sloganeering.
But what the ads lacked in actual informational value, they more than made up for in instructiveness. We thought the ads pretty effectively demonstrated the disconnect between Enbridge’s words and actions— the same disconnect we’ve been describing for months. And to be honest, we’ve really enjoyed slicing and dicing the ads. They’ve become the highlight of our Sunday mornings of late.
So you can imagine our disappointment when we came home with our Sunday edition of the Freep only to search the paper in vain for this week’s ad. Evidently, Enbridge has abandoned that strategy– which means they only made it two out of the four weeks they promised. We’re still hopeful that they’re just taking a break, perhaps because of this week’s elections. In the meantime, we’ll try to find something else to do with ourselves.
We’re working on a number of items that we hope to bring to you in the coming days. In lieu of having any of them actually completed, here’s a little teaser about what you can expect (among other things):
