by Jeffrey Insko | Sep 3, 2012 |
If, like so many of our state elected officials, you have yet to read the NTSB report on the Marshall spill, we urge you once more to do so. But if you are understandably disinclined (or just don’t have the time) to pore over more than 100 pages of federal fact-finding, you can get a taste by reading our series on tales and lessons from the report.
Or, slightly more exhaustively, you can take a look at the excellent series the wonderful Canadian online magazine The Tyee is currently running
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 27, 2012 |
Today, we return to our series on tales and lessons from the NTSB report on the Marshall spill (read Part 1 and Part 2). Those of you who have been with us for a while know that we’ve been reading it so you don’t have to. But we encourage everyone to read it. Frankly, we think it should be required reading, if not for all Michigan citizens, then at least for every public official in the state–and we know from conversations with them that more than a few of our elected officials have not read it. In fact, the report should probably be required reading for all Michigan schoolchildren. Perhaps we’ll start writing to the MDE…
Anyway, we’re thinking more today about the requirements listed in the Brandon Township resolution. Several of these items involve technical improvements in the pipeline, enhancements drawn from Enbridge’s statements about the standards they’ll use for their Canadian Northern Gateway project. These enhancements are undoubtedly a very good thing and we once again applaud the Brandon trustees for asking for similar standards here in the U.S. That being said, however, what the NTSB report teaches us is that when it comes to Enbridge, technology isn’t really the problem; humans are. Which leads us to the topic of this part of our series:
Part 3: Technology is not enough (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 23, 2012 |
Every blogger hopes to reach as wide an audience as possible and I suppose that I am no exception. And since this blog is yet a mere fledgling, I am especially grateful for every single reader who stops by. So it was exciting to learn, late yesterday, that we have readers (or at least one) from Enbridge. Of course, we can’t help wondering who: is it spokesman Joe Martucci? Attorney Michael Ashton? CEO Patrick Daniel? or, what’s far more likely, is it some diligent legal assistant from the law firm that represents Enbridge? How frequently does he or she drop by? Is he or a she a subscriber? (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 22, 2012 |
We’re still applauding and thinking about the resolution passed this week by the Brandon Township Board of Trustees. And we’ll likely be writing about it a lot in the coming days and weeks. Yesterday, we provided a brief outline of its conditions. Today, we’d like to consider just one of those conditions in a bit more detail; specifically, item 6 on their list of requirements, which insists upon:
A guarantee that once the original pipeline is deactivated it will not be used for any kind of petroleum, natural gas, propane or environmentally hazardous product in the future thereby doubling the amount of hazardous material running through Brandon Township (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 19, 2012 |
It’s been almost exactly one year since Enbridge filed its application with the Michigan Public Service Commission seeking approval for its Line 6B “replacement” project. And in that year, we’re not aware of a single elected official from Michigan at the state or national level who has made a single public statement on the matter– much less one who has taken a coherent position that reflects a concern for the important public issues at stake. (If someone knows of such statements, we’d love to hear them).
Because of this extraordinary silence, this leadership vacuum, we’ve spent a fair amount of time over the past few months contacting the officials elected to represent our interests in Michigan and Washington D.C. (And we would urge you to do the same!) We have been met with varying degrees of responsiveness– and we’re not afraid to name names: (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 13, 2012 |
Interesting reports from Canada: it appears that Enbridge would rather not have the NTSB report on the Marshall spill as part of the discussion of their Canadian Northern Gateway project:
This is from the Candian press. And more.
Not surprisingly, Enbridge has also argued that the NTSB report is irrelevant in the matter of MPSC approval for phase two of their Line 6B project:
the information contained in the NTSB Report is not relevant to any material issue in this proceeding. Extending the case schedule in this proceeding pending the issuance of the final NTSB Report is without merit and counterproductive. Even if the NTSB’s Report were relevant, which it is not, the NTSB’s conclusions and recommendations have already been released..
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 5, 2012 |
One of our readers recently asked an important question about the availability of a detailed map showing the route of Line 6B. As far as I know, no such map is readily available to the public; Enbridge posts only a general map of the pipeline’s route across Michigan online. But that map doesn’t do you much good if, say, you live near the Talmadge Creek in Marshall and you suddenly begin to smell a foul odor, but aren’t sure where it’s coming from. It’s not very likely that your first guess is going to be that the source is a Canadian corporation’s 30-inch diameter underground pipe transporting diluted bitumen. (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 4, 2012 |
If you haven’t seen it yet, the NTSB Pipeline Accident Report on the 2010 Enbridge spill in Marshall, Michigan is a riveting– and revealing– document. Still, we understand that 100-plus pages of fact-finding released by a federal regulatory agency isn’t exactly everyone’s idea of fun summer reading. So for that reason, we’re launching a new series, in which we’ll tell you some stories drawn from the NTSB report and try to draw some lessons relevant to the Line 6B project. Here’s our first installment:
Part 1: Does Enbridge Learn from its Mistakes? (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 3, 2012 |
In the first two installments of our three-part series on core issues for landowners and residents affected by the Enbridge Line 6B project (and that’s pretty much all of us!) we discussed individual landowner negotiations and local consent. In our discussion of the latter, we emphasized the importance for local municipalities to try and assert their autonomy and authority (granted by the state constitution) by insisting that Enbridge follow the law and seek consent before beginning construction. We ended that post with the key question: what good it will do for local municipalities to demand that Enbridge seek their consent? That is, what is to be gained?
The key answer to that question (in our view) can be summed up in a single word: safety.
Core issue #3: Safety (more…)
by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 2, 2012 |
We’ve posted several new links to our ever-growing list of “Enbridge News Stories” (over on the right, organized chronologically) and we will continue to do so, so check back frequently. Recent additions include an excerpt from a seven-month investigation into the Marshall spill by InsideClimate News (the full story is available here) and from Reuters, a list of Enbridge oil pipeline incidents over the past decade.
