As we mentioned earlier today– and discussed earlier this week— Enbridge has suddenly, inexplicably, decided to woo the press with a bit of pipeline construction stagecraft now that phase two of the Line 6B “replacement” is in full swing. Tom Hodge has been cast in the role of charming leading man– not a bad move, we have to admit. We’ve always found Hodge quite personable and certainly much more credible, straightforward, and responsive than Enbridge’s brood of PR hustlers– though we have also seen, to our disappointment, that Hodge is prone to the occasional Manshumism (that’s our new term for disingenuous or misleading statements; what do you think?).
Anyway, it’s not hard to see why Enbridge puts on these little media shows: they appear to work. Just take a look at two of the reports filed following yesterday’s mid-day matinée: one from Lisa Satayut at MLive (why didn’t they send Ursula Zerilli?) and another from Scott Davis at the Lansing State Journal. As far as we know, neither Davis nor Satayut has written about the Enbridge project before– and it shows. In fact, in order to try and be generous and fair, we’re going to assume that this fact accounts for both articles’ deficiencies. In our view, we think it’s best if reporters know as much as possible about whatever subject it is they’re writing about; we think readers are much better served that way– as we pointed out in our discussion of Tom Hillen’s disastrous TV spot this week. But we also know (though we’re not in the business) that that isn’t how things always work in practice. Satayut and Davis are given assignments and tight deadlines and not enough time to do the sort of homework that’s going to produce genuinely informative journalism. Because of this, the only thing they can do is type up an account of what happens right in front of their eyes. The results are unfortunate.
Davis’s piece reads just like an Enbridge press release. With the exception of very brief mentions of “the July 2010 pipeline spill that polluted the Kalamazoo River near Marshall” and recent protests (“In recent weeks,” Davis writes, the project “has been hampered by environmental protesters who have linked arms or climbed trees to temporarily block the work”), there is almost no context for the story whatsoever, not even an acknowledgment that this is the second phase of a project that has been going on for well over a year, rife with controversy and contention. Instead, Davis just seems sort of hypnotized by the impressiveness of the operation, waxing a bit lyrical, and then more than happy to step aside and let Jason Manshum pretend like everything has been going just swell, like this:
In most cases, the company purchased additional easements from the 2,500 landowners between Stockbridge and Griffith, Ind., offered reimbursements for crop losses and pledged to restore damaged property once the work is done, said Jason Manshum, spokesman for Enbridge.
“We try to listen to the neighbors and their concerns,” Hodge said. “We try to accommodate them.”
Sigh.
While Davis’s article isn’t much different than one of Enbridge’s notorious full page ads (perhaps this one in particular), at least Satayut recognizes, however simplistically, that there’s more to the story than just a bunch of guys with big equipment and a long stretch of steel pipe. She devotes six paragraphs (well, very short paragraphs) to controversy over the project and provides a full paragraph on Marshall. And there are hyperlinks to related articles.
Unfortunately, the article suffers from the same deficiencies we pointed out with regard to Ursula Zerilli’s piece a couple of days ago. What Satayut innocuously calls “differing opinions on the project” are once again reduced to a crude, ill-informed, and simplistic binary that pits safety-minded Enbridge against some felonious protestors climbing into or chaining themselves to the pipe. That’s it. Nothing about the fact that Enbridge has used the power of eminent domain to take dozens and dozens of landowners to court. Nothing about the fact that numerous Michigan citizens intervened in the MPSC’s approval proceedings for the project, a process that was prolonged, contentious, and raised an array of serious concerns that were not mere “opposition” to the project. Nothing about the fact that a grassroots citizen-group made up primarily of landowners along the pipeline route sued Enbridge in county, then federal court. Nothing about the long, complicated, fascinating standoff between Enbridge and Brandon Township, which illustrated vividly Enbridge’s contemptuous attitude toward and treatment of local authority and local ordinances. Nothing about similar skirmishes (though shorter and quieter) with a number of other townships along the route. Nothing about the silence and apathy of Michigan’s state and federal legislators who have turned a blind eye to Enbridge’s ongoing activities in this state, despite what we know about Marshall. Nothing about the NTSB report on the 2010 spill, which is where we learned so much of what we know about what happened in Marshall (and it ain’t pretty). And, perhaps worst of all, nothing whatsoever about the many, many, many landowners who have never opposed the project, but who have nevertheless felt abused, mistreated, bullied, disrespected, misinformed, under-compensated, beaten down and worn out by Enbridge and its land agents.
Now, we understand that a single article can’t do everything and certainly can’t take on all of that. We recognize that there’s only so much a reporter can do with a limited word count, a limited amount of space. We don’t expect Scott Davis and Lisa Satayut to know about or write about everything we just mentioned in one short article. However, it doesn’t seem to us too much to expect that they could have some dim awareness of all of this and write an article that in some way reflects that awareness, an article that is not either just an Enbridge press release masquerading as a news article (the Davis piece) or a news article that (once again) reduces a set of very important and very complicated and long-running set of concerns to a single woman climbing up into a tree one day (the Satayut piece).
In fact, if you don’t think that can be done, let us direct your attention to the report filed today by Mark Brush of Michigan Radio. Their team– including Rebecca Williams and Lindsey Smith– has been outstanding in their coverage for more than a year. And Mark’s report manages to accomplish– in fewer words!– what Davis and Satayut each fail to do: providing readers with some of the complex, varied, and serious issues that Enbridge’s little performance tried to hide backstage. And it’s not just that Brush went to Dave Gallagher’s house (though that’s no small thing). Mark also manages to mention the NTSB report. He points out (shrewdly) that technology isn’t everything when it comes to pipeline safety. And he mentions legitimate, reasonable landowner concerns that are not just a matter of “opposition.” Obviously, there’s a lot more meat that could still be put on those bones. But what Brush accomplishes in such a short piece is excellent.
It’s what you get when you give a story to a reporter who knows a thing or two about the story he’s covering.
As we’ve said before, we can imagine that Enbridge, thin-skinned as they are, probably thinks that we are overly-critical, probably to the point of being unfair, that we nitpick, that we dwell on the negative. Maybe that’s true– although we think it’s a pretty big deal when, for example, they tell dishonest stories to the EPA. And anyway, we can’t help it that they keep giving us so many nits to pick. Perhaps they should stop that.
But in fairness, we do try to call ’em like we see ’em and that means when they do something right, we should say so– even though it seems a little silly to heap a lot of praise on them for doing the basic things they’re supposed to do. Still, with all that as preface, here’s a positive story:
After months and months of the right of way and workspace in our backyard sitting around empty and untended, to no one’s surprise weeds have taken over. Lots and lots of weeds. Just look:
When reclamation crews appeared late last week to start cleaning up, we were more than a little bothered to learn that their standard procedure is to just plow these weeds under– which really just guarantees that they’ll return. Now it may be that to most people, that’s no big deal. But to us, that’s a real problem; it’s been a source of concern for us from day one (as we explained a long time ago), not to mention an ongoing problem.
Unfortunately, we had to make about five different phone calls before we were able to convince anybody that this was a serious matter worth addressing. But once we got through to Enbridge, they did snap right into action. In fact, on Monday, we met with a whole bunch of them– our land agent, guys from the construction crew, the environmental inspector, and a couple of others: a whole cavalry! And together, we arrived at a perfectly satisfactory solution to the weed problem. We are grateful to all of them for taking the time to come out and address it; they were serious and helpful and genuinely seemed to want to work with us We especially thank the environmental inspector (he’s actually a non-Enbridge employee), who has always been helpful to us, and the construction foreman on the job, who seems to be a terrific guy, responsive and very professional. We have long said (without the least bit of surprise) that the construction workers on this job are a fine, courteous, and good bunch of people; we’ve enjoyed meeting lots of them, despite the circumstances.
Bottom line: once we finally got through to them (and frankly, it could and should have been easier), Enbridge was responsive to our desires on the weed matter. We appreciate it.
Have you received your July 2013 “Construction Update” from Enbridge? Ours arrived just after our return from Washington D.C. Fortunately, it doesn’t contain any vital information that we could have shared with our legislators. Plus, we figure they’re all on the Enbridge mailing list anyway.
Still, it’s a pretty interesting edition of the monthly newsletter. For this one, it appears that Enbridge’s vast public relations brain trust huddled together in a conference room and generated a brand new strategy. You see, having learned (apparently) that nobody much trusts the things uttered by the people who run the company (or formerly ran it), or the disingenuous spinmeisters who represent the company (there are lots and lots of them), or the land agents (including the fictional ones) who are landowners’ primary interface with the company, they’ve decided to lean on the only group of people associated with this project left with any sort of credibility at all: the construction workers. It’s right there in the newsletter’s main headline:
The accompanying letter from Project Director (is this a promotion? he used to be Project Manager) Thomas Hodge is all about the construction crews, focusing heavily on how they’ll be “spending their paychecks locally for goods and services.” Enbridge has even provided some real-life testimonials, from honest-looking employees at various local businesses, about what swell people the construction workers are: “a phenomenal group,” according to somebody at the Cracker Barrel in Brighton; “nothing but respectful,” according to someone from the Outlet Marathon store in Howell; “good guys,” according to a person at a clothing store in Howell.
Of course, we don’t doubt any of this. As regular readers of this blog know, we’ve spent a great deal of time ourselves talking with these construction workers. Obviously, they’re “good guys” (and women, we would add!). Who said otherwise? Who ever would have assumed otherwise? Shouldn’t this go without saying? Did the people at the Outlet Marathon Store in Howell think they’d be difficult to work with? Disrespectful? A bunch of desperadoes and outlaws, like those roving bands of violent thugs and ruffians terrorizing people along secluded highways that always show up in post-apocalyptic movies? Or does Enbridge think that the bad reputation they’ve got derives not from the people actually running the company, but from the people at the very bottom of the pay scale, the workers in the trenches? If that’s the case, they are sorely mistaken. Frankly, we’ve seen lots of ill-conceived PR tactics from Enbridge over the past year. But mainly that’s because they tend to be so very misleading. This one, by contrast, is just bizarre.
Which is not to say that it isn’t also misleading. The other striking thing about the newsletter is that it is packed full of vague, unverifiable claims: construction crews “are comprised of about 60 percent specialized pipeline workers and 40 percent hired from local union halls”; local merchants “will see an economic boon estimated at $330,000 a week along the route”; “the contractor is anticipated to spend up to $665,000 a week on consumables related to the project.”
We hardly have the energy to interrogate this. Can we see the hiring rolls documenting that 60/40 split (it certainly does not jibe with our experience talking with workers)? Who has made that $330k estimate? And what if the reality falls short of that estimate? Will Enbridge make up the difference? Similarly, who anticipates the contractor spending all that money? Spending it where? On what “consumables”? (We heard one story earlier this summer of how a local farmer in our neighborhood had to throw a fit to get Enbridge to buy straw from him, rather than bringing it in from much farther away.) And what about that picture and caption of the Courtyard Marriott? How many pipeline workers are really staying there, we wonder?
We’ll wrap this up with just one more observation, something we have never said before on this blog. And the reason we’ve never said it is because, unlike Enbridge, we generally don’t like making unverifiable claims. It’s why, as we’ve said many times, we don’t tell even a fraction of the many terrible stories of terrible Enbridge behavior that we hear about– not because we don’t trust the people telling us these stories; generally we do. It’s just that we like to be careful– which is what respect for the truth demands. Nevertheless, we will share this, since it’s based not on hearsay, but on our own experience:
In our conversations with dozens of the “phenomenal,” “decent,” “respectful,” “good guys” (and women) working construction on this pipeline in our neighborhood, there have been two common refrains from these people, two things that always seem to come up in our conversations with them. The first thing is that they are ready to go home (to Oklahoma and Texas and Arkansas and Mississippi, rarely to somewhere here in Michigan). Most of them have been here for a very long time. They’re tired and they miss their families and friends. The second thing– and this is why Enbridge’s latest PR strategy is not only bizarre, but deeply, cruelly ironic– is that they have no love and very little respect whatsoever for Enbridge. Repeatedly, we have heard from them– completely unprompted by us– that while they may like their jobs and take pride in their work, they would not say the same about Enbridge.
First, a disclaimer: we know that plenty of people along the Line 6B route have it far worse than we do. We’ve said this numerous times. And this blog and our efforts to get Enbridge to shape up have never been about us or our personal situation. We tell stories about what’s happening in our backyard because it’s what’s closest to us (obviously); our difficulties are merely meant to stand for greater difficulties that so many others along this route have experienced.
Second, a second disclaimer: we are also aware that Enbridge is not in control of the weather. It’s true that they have the power to control creeks and rivers and that the product that runs through their pipe can eat islands (right, Josh Mogerman?), but we’re pretty sure they can’t control when and how much it rains.
And lately, it has rained a lot. Which brings us to the point of all of this: it evidently isn’t enough for Enbridge to destroy almost all of our trees and most of our perennial garden. It looks like they want to take what’s left before they leave as well. You see, after they installed the pipe (the first time) and began to restore our property, spreading new topsoil and all, they left a very large, empty slope. And with nothing planted in that enormous plot of dirt, that meant there is nothing to keep all of the water from rainfalls from running straight down into what’s left of our garden. And that’s not good. In other words, they may not be able to control the rain, but they should be able to control erosion and runoff.
It gets worse. As we’ve told you recently, Enbridge had to come back and tear up that plot of land all over again. They have re-installed and re-buried a long section of pipe. But they have not yet cleaned up, which means that right now, our topsoil is in one big pile, leaving only a large swath of subsoil. So now, when it rains– and it’s been raining a lot– all of that rainwater, mixed with lots of dirty subsoil, is draining right down into what’s left of our garden.
The result of all of this: well, plants are dying. Here’s what the last bit of our garden looks like today:
And here’s a close-up of some dying plants, which were doing just fine this spring:
Now, in this particular spot, heavy rains have caused puddles like this in the past; it’s a low spot in the yard. However, we can tell you that we’ve never had quite this much standing water and, even more certainly, that standing water has NEVER been nasty and brown.
Here’s a shot from behind, which shows the rivulets of runoff draining into our plants.
And perhaps worst of all, here is our cherry tree, which we planted a few years ago. Up until a month or so ago, it has been thriving. Now it is all but dead, from drowning.
And so it goes, one thing after another. Brace yourselves, phase 2 landowners. They’re coming your way.
It’s no secret that Michigan has had its troubles recently; the state, especially our economy, is in pretty rough shape in all sorts of ways. But we still love it here. And if you asked us for the two biggest reasons why, we would cite (1) its astonishingly beautiful natural resources: the Kalamazoo River! the Upper Peninsula!, Sleeping Bear Dunes! the thumb region!; and (2) its exciting and delicious variety of locally produced craft beer: Arcadia! Shorts! Right Brain! North Peak! Bell’s!
In the past few weeks, Enbridge has gone and messed with both of them.
Of course, they’ve been fouling up our natural resources, directly (the Marshall spill) and indirectly (the Detroit River’s pet coke mess), for a while now. But apparently, that’s not enough for them. Last week, we linked to a report and a video (taken by the indefatigable Jake McGraw, who deserves serious credit here) of the nasty-colored discharge from Enbridge’s Line 6B hydrotest pumping into Ore Creek. Well, the DEQ has now looked into the matter. And what did they discover? Well, they found Enbridge guilty of 11 violations– that’s right, ELEVEN– of their permit. You can view the notice here. Now this is truly extraordinary: with their track record in this state, with so many of us watching their every move, with all of the bad press and criticism they’ve received over the past three years and on this project in particular, with all of their statements about making things right and being good neighbors– with all of this and they STILL can’t just abide by some simple regulations? Here again is an occasion (these occasions seem never to end) to ponder the imponderable: why can’t Enbridge do better?
(Of course, in this instance, one reason they can’t do better is that they don’t really have to. After all, what repercussions do they have to face from the DEQ? A cessation of their activities? A disabling fine? Criminal charges? No, none of the above. Instead, they’ve been ordered to “submit a written plan.” That’ll teach ’em a lesson!)
But as bad as that news is, it gets worse. They’ve also recently gone and angered Larry Bell. Yes, that Larry Bell, the guy who brews what might be the best beer on the planet: Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale. What’s got Bell upset? Well, it seems that Enbridge, in complying with the EPA’s recent order to continue cleaning up the Kalamazoo River, has embarked upon a work plan without bothering to notify or consult any of the locals, including the local government, about it (sounds familiar, right?). And that has Larry Bell and other residents and business owners concerned about the effects that work might have on their business and their lives.
It’s just one thing after another, with no apparent end in sight. And it’s one thing to mess with landowners, to flout local authority, to disregard regulations, and to dissemble and make hollow pronouncements to the public. But to go and mess with our beer? That’s just cruel.
Yesterday, we experienced the near impossible. No, Enbridge did not announce that they’re going to remove the old Line 6B and issue an apology to all landowners for behaving callously toward them. That, too, would be a miracle. No, instead, after numerous conversations with construction workers this week– workers from Tennessee and Texas and Oklahoma and Mississippi– we finally met someone from Michigan! And from the immediate area, no less. We’re not sure if this one guy gets 1,000 jobs of if the other 999 local workers Enbridge likes to talk about are being hidden somewhere else, but it was nice to see a fellow Michigander in a hard hat and safety vest for a change.
There’s some other news to report as well. We’re happy to see that citizens in Indiana are keeping up the pressure, calling for more state regulatory oversight of Enbridge and other pipeline companies. Believe it or not, they might have a weaker regulatory system than Michigan. We’re also glad to see that they’re working with our awesome friends from the Pipeline Safety Trust.
Lastly, it now looks like Enbridge is going to buy– and remove– Ceresco Dam. Evidently, the DNR thinks removing the dam is a good idea and, as this is something we know nothing about, we don’t have an opinion about it. But we do find it bothersome and rather ominous that Enbridge is going to buy up even more of the Kalamazoo River– it’s yet another example, in addition to the one we mentioned yesterday, of how they are remaking the state of Michigan in their own image. Local resident Greg Lawcock agrees: “”That’s too much control for one company if you ask me,” said Lawcock.
Details have yet to be released on Enbridge plans to acquire the sun and the moon.
This week, while we’ve watched Enbridge’s construction crews return to our property, which is now once again torn up, strewn with long sections of pipe and heavy equipment and also, thanks to the weather, a big, sloggy, muddy mess, we’ve been stewing a little. And we’ve been ruminating on one basic question: why can’t Enbridge do better?
In this case, we’re not even talking about their operations. We’re not making a big deal out of the fact that some 400 feet of pipe they pulled beneath a road and across a couple of our neighbors’ properties is damaged and has to be replaced. We are not suggesting that this is a sign of carelessness or shoddy work or ineptitude or any such thing. We are not pipeline construction experts. We assume that these sorts of things happen from time to time; laying hundreds of miles of pipe is a complicated, sophisticated process about which we do not pretend to know very much (other than what we’ve learned over these several months). And in fact, we’re sure it’s better that they’re fixing the problems their tests discovered rather than finding ways to dismiss indications of problems (as was the case in Marshall in 2010). So, we have no real quarrel with the fact that they’ve had to re-commence construction in our neighborhood and on our property– even though we are tired tired tired, oh-so-tired of dealing with the noise, the mess, the intrusions, and the disruptions.
No, the problem– and this has ALWAYS been the problem– is with how they’ve gone about, with the thoughtless disregard Enbridge has shown toward us (in this case) and toward so many landowners over the course of this project. And for reasons we still cannot fathom– especially given all that has happened over the past year, all of the complaints and bad press and contention and legal-wrangling– Enbridge simply can’t seem to rectify this problem. They simply can’t seem to do any better. Why?
Let’s back up and review what’s transpired this week as we consider this most difficult of questions:
Some time a few weeks ago, our neighbors immediately adjacent to us were notified by an Enbridge rep that hydrotesting was about to take place on the newly installed line. We were not notified. Presumably, there is some reason for this– proximity, perhaps?– so we didn’t think a great deal of it. But then last weekend, construction crews arrived on that same neighbor’s property and began digging, commencing the process they are now in the middle of, replacing that stretch of pipe.
Naturally, we wondered if any construction would be taking place on our property. We also had some lingering questions about restoration, questions we’ve been trying to get answered since February. So we figured it was as good a time as any to give an agent a call (that is, the agent whose name we were given by our former agent who has since departed). Now, this particular agent happens to be, at least in our limited dealings with him, a very nice guy, polite, respectful, all of that. But he’s clearly overworked; he told us he was working on more than one Enbridge project at present. And not only is he overworked, he has obviously not been given any information about much of anything by anyone in any kind of supervisory position. (Who’s his boss? Doug Aller? Micah Harris? We’re not sure, but whoever it is, that person would appear to be doing a very, very poor job.) The reason we say he has not been given any information is because he told us, flatly and forthrightly (which was rather refreshing, to be honest) that he did not know anything about any of the questions we were asking– about restoration, including some things we’ve been told by Mark Curwin and Tom Hodge, about the recent tests, about the construction currently taking place, about the prospects for work taking place on our property. Nothing. He just didn’t know.
Now, it’s worth pausing here for one second to pose the obvious question: what is the point of giving landowners the contact information of people who are completely unable to answer any of their questions? What is a landowner supposed to do in such a situation? We’ll return to this question.
That call was early Monday morning. Then, surprisingly, not 10 minutes after hanging up the phone, we look out the back door and see surveyors on our property. So we went out to talk with them. The surveyor, unlike the land agent, did seem to know some things. He seemed to have some idea of how the pipe was damaged and the steps that crews were preparing to take in order to fix it. He told us that our property was going to be used to stage some pipe. What he did not say– and we don’t blame him for this; he’s just a surveyor– was that bulldozers were about to arrive to start pushing aside all of our topsoil and that other heavy equipment and a fleet of pickup trucks and all manner of noise and mess and mayhem would ensue. But over the next few days, that is exactly what has happened. We posted pictures of the scene yesterday.
Now, again, all of this mess is terribly unfortunate and frustrating. But ordinarily, we’d be disinclined to complain about it. We know it’s just the deal. Enbridge has an easement on our property. They need to install their pipe. They have to fix it when they find problems. We get all that. The problem, however, is this: no one from Enbridge ever told us beforehand that this was going to happen. We received NO notification. Not a friendly knock on the door, not a phone call, not even an email. Nothing. One day we’re thinking about planting some trees; the next day bulldozers are back. Just like that.
So here’s a second question: does that sound neighborly to you? Do good neighbors just show up unannounced, without so much as a courtesy call to let you know they’ll be dropping by? And when you later tell them that you don’t appreciate them just dropping by without the slightest warning– as I did in an email to Mark Curwin and Tom Hodge– would a good neighbor just ignore you?
Which brings us back to our original question: why can’t Enbridge do better? What is it that prevents them from taking even the simplest steps to cultivate good relations with landowners? What keeps them from doing the things they say they’ll do? from living up to the values they profess and the principles they say guide their conduct? from conducting themselves in such a manner that would prevent us from having an endless amount of material to write about? Why do they seem to be completely incapable of getting it right?
Well, we started this post wanting to answer that question. But the posing of the question has gotten much longer than we anticipated. So we’ll explore some answers in a separate posting. Stay tuned.
As we reported yesterday, construction crews have returned to our property, which evidently they need to stage some pipe to replace a damaged section of pipe on properties adjacent to ours. No one from Enbridge bothered to let us know that they’d be here tearing up the land they carefully restored about a month ago. In fact, when we asked our new land agent yesterday, right before crews arrived, if any work would be taking place on our property, he didn’t know. You see, Enbridge (as we’ve long known) doesn’t even communicate well with its own people.
All of this, of course, is dismaying– and for lots of reasons. In addition to the complete lack of regard for landowners like us, here’s cause for dismay: you might recall the lovely surprise we discovered a couple of months ago once all the equipment left our property. Some irises miraculously survived the ordeal. Here they are just last month, growing and thriving:
And here they are this morning–er, well, um, you can’t see them because they are now crushed underneath that large piece of equipment.
You might also recall all the new topsoil they brought in for us after spoiling ours by carelessly dumping subsoil on top of it. This morning, we’ve been watching them bulldoze it all up. Like this:
Oh, and that piece of pipe there? Evidently, that’s the damaged section they removed. We’re not sure why it was necessary to set it on our land.
We apologize for our recent absence– but assure you we are still on the case! We’ll explain why we’ve been away later and we’ll also try to play some catch up. In the meantime, you might check out the latest from the Freep (we’re in there along with our friend David Gallagher). Reporter Keith Metheny is doing some fine work.
Oh, and what makes the appearance of the article especially timely? It appears on the very day when bulldozers showed up– completely unannounced– to our property. They’re out there right now here’s photographic evidence!). We’ll tell you that story soon also!
A couple of weeks ago, we received a letter from our right of way agent announcing that he’s moving on to another job close to his home in Minnesota. As strange as it seems to say it, we’re actually sorry to see him go. The truth is that during the construction phase of the project, he was very responsive to us– far more so, from what we’ve heard from many other landowners, than most other land agents. We’ve been sort of lucky in this regard.
In fact, this week we learned just how true that it. Our agent left us with a couple of new land agent contacts for the restoration phase. We called one of them to check on the status of restoration and because we wanted to ensure that our topsoil situation would be handled properly. The agent was not responsive. He seemed annoyed by the call, didn’t have any information for us regarding when we could expect restoration to begin on our property, and was disinclined to even bother looking into our situation. So you can imagine our surprise when, the very next day, crews arrived to begin restoring our property.
So we called him again. Same response: he just wasn’t interested. He didn’t even want to come out and talk with us as we asked. Frankly, he was so unhelpful and apparently annoyed that we were even calling him, that we’re tempted to do something we’ve never done before and name him by name. But we won’t. (However, if you’re on phase one and you want to know who NEVER to call, send me a note and I’ll tell you who to avoid.)
The good news is that the supervisor of the restoration crew and the environmental inspector were both VERY helpful. We had satisfying conversations with both about the items on our line list and what we wanted to happen with restoration. And they appear to have made sure all of those things happened. As always, we took some photos:
The crew– here’s more good news: almost all of them, they told us, are from Michigan– worked remarkably fast. First, they moved our pile of timber (which they were supposed to have moved when the took the trees down).
Then they decompacted the subsoil (or so the environmental inspector said; we’re a little nervous about this).
Then– but only because I asked about it– they moved the big pile of wood chips we wanted saved. These chips were supposed to be hauled away when construction started. But since they didn’t take them away, we thought we’d keep them for mulch. Our line list said to move them to the back of the property, but the crew apparently didn’t know that (more on this in a minute).
But finally, they were placed in the right spot– it’s a much bigger pile than we thought!
We did get a couple of nice surprises. This daisy was on the edge of the temporary workspace– and survived.
Even better, buried underneath that pile of shredded wood were these bearded irises, white for lack of sunlight for months, but still alive. True survivors!
Crews aren’t quite finished yet, though things look a lot better now– no more orange fence! And we are (mostly) satisfied with this phase of restoration. Yet lots of questions marks about re-vegetaation remain. And there are some important lessons for those of you yet to go through this, whether you are on phase one or on phase two. For instance,
Be sure you touch base with your land agent before restoration begins on your property. Reiterate the items on your line list and mention any new concerns or instructions you might have.
The only downside to doing that, unfortunately, is that not all right of way agents are reliable or effective communicators. So no matter what you say, it might not make it to the construction crews. Therefore, if at all possible, try and find the restoration crew supervisor before they begin. Repeat your concerns to him.
Similarly, if you can find the environmental inspector– there should be one on your property at some point– seek her or him out and discuss any concerns.
We are fortunate to have the kinds of work schedules that allow us to be here to see what’s happening most of the time. We’re sure that’s not true for everyone. So this next piece of advice will be more difficult for some of you. Nevertheless, as best you can, BE VIGILANT. Check on what’s happening on your property. Watch when you can. As much as you are able, be your own inspector. The crews are generally good people (in our experience) and respectful. But communication from land agents isn’t always what it should be, so they might make unwitting mistakes. Watch for them.
Lastly, if you are on phase two and won’t experience restoration for a very long time, it’s not too early for you to be thinking about these things also– even if you don’t yet have an agreement with Enbridge. Think about what you want to happen on your property once the project is completed. Think about what is unique about your property and important to you and what measures should be taken to ensure that those concerns or unique features are appropriately addressed– then have those things put into your line list. If phase two readers would like it, we’d be happy to work up a separate post on the kinds of things one might have put on a construction line list.
In the meantime, we’ll continue to report on restoration matters as they progress. Please let us know what’s happening– good or bad– on your property as “clean up” continues.
