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.
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.
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!
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):
Please check back often!
As you can see, we’ve made some changes, spiffed up the joint a bit and done some reorganizing. We hope you like what we’ve done (and feel free to let us know if you don’t– we can take it). The changes are still a bit unfinished, so we will be working out some kinks, building pages for the navigation menu items, and a fiddling with a few other things over the next several days, so please bear with us.
We’re working as furiously (pun intended) as we can on the second installment of our new series focused upon our conversation with Enbridge VP Mark Sitek. We’ve decided to use the series as a way of diagnosing the (hopefully curable) malady from which, in our view, Enbridge suffers. But we’re interrupting that work to bring you a story we just heard. File it under: Making Sure Enbridge Behaves During Construction.
But before recounting it, a quick word to our Enbridge readers: here at the Line 6B Citizens’ Blog, we hear LOTS of stories, most of them rather awful in their portrayal of Enbridge. Most of those stories we don’t tell, either out of respect for the parties who told them to us or, equally important, because we can’t verify them. That is to say, we are willing to be unflinching in our criticism of Enbridge when we think it’s warranted, but we are NOT in the business– and I think our work shows this– of simply passing along every rumor or third-hand tale of alleged Enbridge nefariousness that crosses our desk. Because we want to be fair, we demonstrate more forbearance in this regard than you know. What matters to us more than anything else is the truth.
Having said that, we have complete and total trust in the veracity of our source for this story. So here it is:
The NWF’s Beth Wallace yesterday on Fox Business News talking about Enbridge’s planned expansion of its aging Line 5.
No, we are not going to be on television– that is something we studiously avoid (although if a major national network wanted to talk about Line 6B we would surely oblige…). Instead, our friend Beth Wallace from the National Wildlife Federation, who is infinitely more telegenic than we are, is going to appear on Fox Business News this afternoon at about 5 pm to talk about the NWF’s recent report on Enbridge’s Line 5, which runs through the straits of Mackinac.
Be sure to tune in.
Lest we be accused of being unfair, we have two positive items about Enbridge to mention this morning:
First, the Clarkston News reports that Enbridge has awarded the Oxford Fire Dept. a $1000 grant to purchase combustible gas detection meters. We’re glad to see emergency responders from local municipalities getting financial support. Surely they need it. And indeed, Enbridge’s “Safe Community Program” is a real example– as opposed to the hollow rhetorical ones we hear from their PR folks– of neighborliness. Indeed, we will just note that months ago we encouraged the trustees of Brandon and Groveland Townships to seek funding from Enbridge for community projects.
Secondly, our ROW agent has been doing a very good job of providing construction updates. (From what we’ve heard, other ROW agents are not doing the same). In the latest, we’re told that Enbridge’s plan is still to finish construction by the end of 2012. Surveyors continue to move east and clearing crews are right on their heels. If you’ve seen the footage here on the blog, you know that tree clearing took place on our property on Monday and Tuesday. We haven’t seen any other crews since, however.
60 or so years for those trees to grow, about 45 minutes to take them all down.
