The Worst Thing Enbridge Has Done

by Jeffrey Insko | Apr 14, 2021 | 0 comments

it’s been almost a full decade now that I’ve been documenting, right here on this blog, Enbridge’s many misdeeds, mistakes, mistreatments, missteps, falsehoods, fabrications, dissemblings, distortions, and dishonest dealings with people in Michigan and beyond. It’s an appalling record, so appalling in fact that it’s frankly astonishing that anyone, much less anyone in a position of any authority, could possibly trust them or believe a word they say. And yet, a stunning number of willing dupes, including the Republican-led legislature just a few years ago, continue to do this company’s bidding (while the planet burns).

But the past week brought an example of what might very well be the worst thing Enbridge has done yet.

And believe me, I know that’s saying something. This is the same company, to cite just three of the very worst examples, that struggles even to tell the truth about when the Kalamazoo River spill happened, that straight-up lied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that just brazenly (I thought they’d never stoop lower than this) made up an unflattering story about a single ordinary citizen and spread it around publicly.

The latest, however, is simply unconscionable. It involves turning tribal relations into a crass public relations stunt. Out of respect, I will let tribal leaders and others speak for themselves about this serious and sensitive matter (see the links below). I will just observe that this episode shows that if Enbridge is not actively and deliberately engaged in fomenting division among tribal groups and members, they are at the very least self-servingly exploiting whatever divisions may exist. Either way, it’s utterly shameful. If Enbridge were truly and genuinely serious about “peacemaking” or listening or cultivating relationships with indigenous peoples based on trust and reciprocity, they would just shut up and work on it, rather than trying to make a public show of it.

Here’s the story in a few different places:

Tribal Leaders Denounce Enbridge for Manipulative Video About Indigenous Peacemaking

Tribal members criticize Enbridge claims of ‘peacemaking’ attempts

Did Enbridge intend to mislead press and public? (statement of the Anishinaabek Caucus of Michigan)

Enbridge taps new approach for pipelines (which reports on a similar strategy in Minnesota with Line 3)

You Can’t Believe Anything Enbridge Says, part 1,497

by Jeffrey Insko | Oct 23, 2020 | 4 comments

Last night at their Virtual Community Meeting Enbridge, once again, misinformed the public. Now, perhaps you find that as unsurprising as the rising and the setting of the sun– and that sort of response is justifiable. But it’s important not to accept this as a natural phenomenon; it’s important not to normalize Enbridge’s persistent failure simply to tell the truth. So let me explain what happened and then I will explain why it matters.

After a boilerplate presentation, Enbridge accepted questions from attendees. At one point, a questioner asked why Enbridge misrepresents their safety to protocols in the media to appease the public. But this was not precisely the question the Enbridge moderator asked. Instead, despite the questioner’s request that the question be read just as it was phrased (I know this because the questioner, who was not me, happens to be a friend of mine), the moderator re-worded it into a more anodyne question about Enbridge’s safety systems. That’s bad enough.

But the response to the question was even worse. (And here let me say that I could name the Enbridge rep who answered this question but instead I’m just going to say “Enbridge” because this issue of not telling the truth is not an individual problem. It’s systemic; it is, in fact, endemic to the way Enbridge communicates with the public). At any rate, in response to this question, Enbridge offered up some familiar platitudes about how the 2010 spill had forever changed them. Then, as an example of how they’ve changed, Enbridge said they have instituted a 10-minute restriction: a rule that says if they can’t identify and resolve a problem with a pipeline for which they’ve received a warning within ten minutes, they will shut the line down until the problem is resolved. Enbridge added, explicitly, that they did not have a 10-minute restriction in place in 2010.

But this is patently false! Enbridge most certainly had a ten minute restriction in place in 2010. In fact, what makes this falsehood particularly striking is that the ten minute rule was a major point of discussion in the NTSB report outlining Enbridge’s failures in 2010. The NTSB cited that rule as of the prime examples of Enbridge’s “culture of deviance” from their own safety protocols and systems. In addition, the ten minute rule wasn’t even new then. It had already been in place for almost 20 years, instituted in 1991 after another Enbridge oil spill in Minnesota. I wrote about this at length eight years ago as an illustration of how Enbridge does not change, does not learn from their mistakes. You can check it out here.

So just let this sink in: in response to a question about misrepresenting their safety protocols, Enbridge misrepresented their safety protocols.

Now, maybe you’re thinking this isn’t such a big deal. Maybe you’re thinking that this falsehood is relatively inconsequential compared, say, to the time the Enbridge CEO failed to tell the truth about the type of oil that spilled into Talmadge Creek, or the time Enbridge lied to the EPA, or the time Enbridge pretended like the spill in Marshall didn’t happen when it happened, or the time Enbridge simply made disparaging things up about a concerned Canadian citizen, or the time Enbridge made the Mississippi River disappear in Minnesota, or the time Enbridge failed to disclose important information about protective coating on Line 5 to Michigan state officials, or… any number of other examples I could cite. But the existence of all these other examples is one very important reason why this one matters so very much. Nor is that all. Consider:

1. The reason Enbridge even scheduled this week’s Virtual Community Meetings in the first place was to comply with the terms of the Consent Decree they reached with the Department of Justice as a settlement for the 2010 spill. That stipulation exists because the NTSB found Enbridge’s community awareness efforts inadequate, a fact that contributed to the magnitude of the spill. So these meeting are meant to help correct that inadequacy. But if what’s happening at those meetings is the spread of misinformation, one could plausibly argue that Enbridge hasn’t really fulfilled its obligation under the terms of the agreement. After all, it is surely not the case that the DoJ just wanted Enbridge to hold meetings, regardless of the accuracy of the information presented at those meetings, right?
2. In fairness, it may well be the case that this piece of misinformation was simply an error (though it was definitely NOT an example of misspeaking; that much was clear). Maybe this particular representative from Enbridge simply doesn’t know the history of the ten minute rule. Maybe this person doesn’t have a strong grasp of Enbridge’s safety protocols before or since the 2010 spill. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t that person be disqualified from talking about it? If Enbridge wants to inform the public accurately, shouldn’t they send a representative who actually knows these things? Or shouldn’t Enbridge simply provide better training for the people they send out to interface with the public? The fact that they don’t does not engender confidence about their corporate systems and protocols.
3. This is a pattern of behavior. It just can’t be stated enough: this is not an isolated example (see examples above), this is a decade-long pattern of behavior, one that almost defies explanation. But the inescapable fact is that Enbridge simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth, even when like last night, there’s not really even much to be gained from spreading misinformation.
4. Finally, the fact that Enbridge cannot be trusted to tell the truth has enormous consequences. At this moment, Enbridge is seeking approval in multiple states for massive new infrastructure projects: Line 3 in Minnesota and Line 5 here in Michigan, most notably. And to advance those interests, Enbridge is also involved in massive public relations and lobbying efforts to persuade members of the public and elected officials to support their projects. But why would anyone– how can anyone– believe their rosy assurances? How can public agencies be assured that Enbridge is taking part in regulatory proceedings in good faith? How can the public have confidence in those proceedings when the party at the center of them is so habitually dishonest? How can anyone possibly accept that Enbridge respects tribal sovereignty in Wisconsin or cares at all about safeguarding waterways in Minnesota or that they can build a concrete tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan in just three years?

So, sure, maybe in the context of one short, sparsely attended online community meeting last night’s falsehood doesn’t seem like much. But in this broader context, as part of Enbridge’s persistent, abiding, ongoing pattern of dissembling, withholding, spreading misinformation, and prevarication, I think it’s of tremendous importance. How much longer are state officials and credulous members of the public going to shrug their shoulders, dismiss, ignore, or explain away Enbridge’s untrustworthy conduct?

Enbridge Fined Again: Fool Me Once…

by Jeffrey Insko | Jun 19, 2020 | 0 comments

Enbridge has been fined again. This week, Enbridge announced that it has reached a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to comply with safety-related measures stipulated in the U.S. Department of Justice consent decree Enbridge agreed to in 2017 as a result of the Marshall spill.

You can read the whole thing here. The fines totaling $6.7 million are the result, among other things, of Enbridge’s failure “to complete timely identification and evaluation of thousands of ‘shallow dent’ features on Lakehead System pipelines” and to take measures to repair or mitigate those defects in their pipelines.

Sound familiar?

This is exhausting. I’ve been writing this same blog post for 8 full years now. I’m frankly tired of it. How many times do I have to point out that Enbridge, despite all of its corporate public relations rhetoric, never learns from its mistakes? How many times do I need to document how they repeat precisely the same (unsafe) behavior over and over? How many times do I have to rehearse the fact that when they get busted they prevaricate and dissemble and make laughable excuses like a teenager caught sneaking peppermint schnapps from the liquor cabinet?

First, let’s be very clear about one thing: failing to take swift action to correct defects on a pipeline is very serious business. By now, everyone reading this knows that is exactly what led to the disastrous spill in Marshall. We all know that Enbridge knew, for years, about cracks and other defects in Line 6B but they did not take measures to fix those problems. We also know the result: a million gallons of diluted bitumen in the Kalamazoo River.

Secondly, fast forward to 2017, when Enbridge once again tried to hide or downplay pipeline defects, this time with Line 5. Enbridge knew about damaged protective coating on Line 5 for years before divulging that very important and very serious information to Michigan state officials

Thirdly, Enbridge’s response in these instances is always grudging compliance and excuse-making. Never do they take responsibility. The present example of this is so extraordinary I need to tell you about it in some detail. Please stick with me:

Although Enbridge has agreed to pay the $6-plus million in fines, they steadfastly refuse to concede that they have committed any safety violations. Instead, in a truly stunning letter to the EPA, Enbridg’s attorneys shamelessly attempt to write the whole thing off as no big deal, insisting that “all of these alleged violations were largely administrative in nature and did not result in any safety issues, missed integrity risk reduction activities, loss of product or any damage to the environment.” So, for example, when the EPA fines Enbridge for failing to report crack features in a timely manner, Enbridge says it was because of “an administrative oversight.” And when the EPA fines Enbridge for completing their Threat Integration for Line 3 a few days late, Enbridge shrugs it off as “an administrative error.” And on and on and on. No parent of a child would ever accept such bullshit.

But two things are worth recognizing here with regard to these “administrative” matters. First, this kind of administration is incredibly important. Enbridge seems to want the EPA and the rest of us to believe that because these things are all “administrative in nature” they are of no particular concern. But there are important reasons for these rules; there are important reasons that regulatory bodies require, say, the timely reporting of crack defects in pipelines: it’s one way to assure that those defects get corrected before there is a problem, like a massive spill. Applying for a driver’s license and keeping your auto insurance updated are also “administrative in nature,” but they are important. Administration is prevention.

Secondly, if a corporation is making that many “administrative errors” isn’t that a sign of some deeper problems? Sure, anybody can make one mistake. There are a hundred reasons why someone might make an auto insurance payment late; insurance companies even make allowances for such things. But if I pay my insurance bill late over and over, eventually my insurer will probably terminate my coverage. And make no mistake about it, Enbridge has a long history of exhibiting troubling patterns of behavior, a long history of just these kinds of systemic problems. Have we already forgotten about the NTSB’s description of the company’s “culture of deviance” from safety protocols? How can Enbridge expect to earn the public’s trust if they’re so sloppy and lax with regard to “administrative” matters?

Finally– and this is the most important part– Enbridge insists to EPA over and over that these administrative problems “did not result in any safety issues, missed integrity risk reduction activities, loss of product or any damage to the environment.” But that argument is outlandish. To extend my analogy, just because I drove my car home safely without a license or insurance does not mean I should have been driving the car. And I definitely shouldn’t be driving it while drinking, which is basically what Enbridge is doing by continuing to operate pipelines with known defects. Just because nothing happened this time doesn’t mean it won’t. Again, that’s the whole point of all of this: prevention.

Frankly, I don’t know how EPA can abide Enbridge’s cavalier attitude toward these things, especially given the way Enbridge has thumbed its nose at the EPA in the past. But one thing is for sure: this troubling behavior, these lapses, these failures to take responsibility, this disturbing pattern of behavior should be given serious consideration when it comes to regulatory approvals (or disapprovals) of Line 3 and Line 5. Enbridge calls them “administrative errors”; I call them “evidence.”

Enbridge Cannot Be Trusted

by Jeffrey Insko | Aug 20, 2019 | 1 comment

If you’ve been paying attention to Line 5 matters in the past few weeks, you may have noticed that Enbridge has turned up the volume on its campaign to gain public support for its phantom tunnel. In addition to their own radio spots, Enbridge has enlisted some of their influential friends in the effort, like the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and even the powerful American Petroleum Institute. More recently, it appears they have convinced some credulous county commissions to join in their public relations effort by adopting a formal resolution in support of Line 5. It’s not clear who wrote the thing and at least one commissioner claims it wasn’t Enbridge, but from start to finish it is taken verbatim from well-worn Enbridge talking points.

Unfortunately, this is an old pattern. As a landowner who lives along the Enbridge Line 6B pipeline route, I have spent years observing, recording their misdeeds, and sometimes even working closely with Enbridge. During the replacement project, I watched over and over as sweet-talking Enbridge reps seduced local officials into believing their every word. What’s disheartening about this dynamic is that we have mountains of evidence that Enbridge’s words can’t be trusted. Since the Marshall spill in 2010, Enbridge has compiled a long and not-so-distinguished record that illustrates vividly how they deal with Michigan elected officials. Perhaps these county commissioners are unaware of this sordid history. So let’s recall just a handful of examples:

• In the days following the spill in late July 2010, then Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel was asked repeatedly by reporters if the material spilled from Line 6B was tar sands oil. On more than one occasion, Daniel categorically denied that the line carried tar sands. Pressed on the question by reporters days later, Daniel finally conceded the point, but not without some verbal gymnastics and hair-splitting that included denying his original denial. This failure to be honest had severe consequences. It meant that residents along the river were not evacuated as soon as they probably should have been and it rendered initial cleanup efforts less effective, as first responders assumed they were dealing with conventional crude, which behaves differently in fresh water.
• Beginning in 2011, when Enbridge embarked upon its replacement of Line 6B across the State of Michigan, they left countless landowners feeling mistreated, misinformed, and taken advantage of. They also dealt dishonestly with local officials. When one township dared to ask Enbridge for compliance with their local ordinances, Enbridge dragged its feet and made all manner of false promises and assurances in a tortuous process that dragged on for months. At one point, the township supervisor offered this frank assessment:“Enbridge does not appear to be sincere in what they have communicated to the township.
• Nor was Enbridge’s lack of sincerity confined to its dealing with township officials. Midway through the Kalamazoo River cleanup, Enbridge Vice President Rich Adams offered up a brazen falsehood to the Environmental Protection Agency—in writing. In 2013, Enbridge sought an extension of the EPA-imposed deadline to complete its dredging of the river. In his letter making this request, Adams specifically claimed that Enbridge had “promptly applied for all necessary local permits for the operation.” But in fact, the reason Enbridge’s dredging work was delayed was precisely because Comstock Township officials discovered that Enbridge was beginning work without having sought the appropriate permits.
• At times, Enbridge has difficulty speaking forthrightly about even the simplest of things. In 2014, Enbridge took out full-page ads in Michigan newspapers to commemorate the anniversary of the spill and to convince the public that the spill was an event they would always remember. President Brad Shamla put it this way, “July 26, 2010 is a day no one at Enbridge will ever forget.” But of course everyone knows that the spill did not happen on July 26; Line 6B ruptured on July 25. It took seventeen hours for Enbridge to discover the spill, a fact that their public remembrance apparently tried to make everyone forget.
• Enbridge has proven no more trustworthy in its communications with the state about Line 5. In 2017, Enbridge ensured members of the state’s Pipeline Safety Advisory Board that the protective coating on Line 5 was without defects. Later, however, it was revealed that Enbridge knew about damage to the pipeline’s protective coating in 2014 but failed to disclose the information to state regulatory agencies.

Further examples abound (preserved in the Line 6B Citizens’ Blog archives); these are simply some of the most egregious. The lesson is clear. For nearly a decade, Enbridge has exhibited a pattern of behavior that indicates they will say or do almost anything to advance their own interests. They have withheld information, dissembled, and distorted the truth repeatedly in their dealings with Michigan elected officials at almost every level. In the face of such demonstrable evidence of their untrustworthy actions and at an historical moment that calls for urgent action to mitigate the effects of climate change, why would state elected officials—whether it’s the Governor, the legislature, or count commissioners—trust Enbridge to do what’s right for the Great Lakes and what’s right for the planet? The tunnel is never going to be built; it’s a fantasy, a cheap ploy to stall, delay, and keep Line 5 up and running as long as possible. Let’s not let our elected representatives continue to act as Enbridge’s dupes.

Why are rational people debating a Line 5 tunnel?

by Jeffrey Insko | Apr 30, 2019 | 3 comments

Recently, Governor Whitmer, who campaigned to shut down Line 5, seemed to reverse course and expressed a willingness to consider Enbridge’s absurd scheme to build a concrete tunnel to house the Line 5 pipelines. What led to this surprising retreat from her tough stance on the campaign trail remains opaque. But one can’t help but think that what we have here is yet another instance of Enbridge, its deep pockets, and its vast cadre of crafty lawyers manipulating yet another state official. Enbridge has been trying, often with success, to play Michigan’s elected leaders for fools for at least a decade: they dissembled for days about the type of oil they spilled into the Kalamazoo River in 2010; they hoodwinked the Michigan Public Service Commission into helping them re-write Michigan law to their own advantage; they dealt dishonestly with township officials and landowners during the replacement of Line 6B; they told a brazen lie to the EPA in their attempt to skirt local authority during the cleanup of the Kalamazoo River; and at one point, they even tried to convince the public that the Kalamazoo spill didn’t happen when it happened.

Whitmer promised an end to these manipulations. Yet here we are again, this time discussing, studying, considering, and debating whether the State of Michigan should encourage and permit a massive, decades-long investment in what is in reality a mid-20th century infrastructure project: a concrete tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac that will keep Line 5 running for another 100 years, a ludicrous plan. The very real threats that transporting oil beneath the Straits poses to the world’s largest body of fresh water have been well documented. So, too, has the urgent need to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent climate catastrophe, the effects of which promise to be especially severe in the Great Lakes region in the form of rising water levels, infrastructure collapses, heat-related deaths, and dramatically reduced agricultural yields. Now is clearly not the time to encourage more fossil fuel development and consumption. Even energy market analysts are growing increasingly wary of investments in new pipeline projects. 

For these reasons alone, the fact that Enbridge has convinced anyone at all to take seriously their outlandish tunnel scheme is astonishing. It’s doubtful even they take it seriously as anything other than a stalling tactic. In addition to making a backward-looking investment in fossil fuels, constructing a tunnel would require thousands of tons of concrete, the manufacture of which is another major contributor to global warming. The fact that the tunnel is treated as a real proposal, one upon which policymakers and thoughtful people ought to deliberate, is an unfortunate sign of just how much power and influence Enbridge possesses in this state, the gullibility and short-sightedness of our state legislators, and the utter failure of state leaders and, unfortunately, too many ordinary citizens to imagine a future that’s not virtually identical to our present.

Governor Whitmer’s rationale for re-considering the tunnel plan is that it can potentially “help… get the pipeline out of the water earlier.” Yet it’s not altogether clear how she has arrived at such a conclusion. After all, it is far from certain that the tunnel plan will get the pipeline out of the water earlier (one is tempted to ask, earlier than what?). Planning, studying, securing environmental permits, and an all-but-certain string of lawsuits are sure to delay the project for many years before construction even begins. Once resolved, the construction process, by Enbridge’s own estimate, is likely to takes long as another 10 years. By that time, it’s not unlikely that the realities of global warming will have persuaded even the most intractable of climate deniers, leaving a new generation of state leaders scratching their heads over what their predecessors were thinking.

Nor is it even true that the tunnel will get the pipeline out of the water. The concrete tunnel housing the new pipeline, even buried in bedrock, will still be susceptible to stresses and strains, potential cracks, seepages, accidents, explosions, and failures as any other piece of infrastructure. In other words, a tunnel is no guarantee of safety—as crumbling concrete roads, dams, bridges, and yes, tunnels, all over the world attest. And then there’s the danger of explosion. Yet among the most maddening features of the Line 5 debate has been the apparent willingness of everyone—opponents and proponents alike—to unquestioningly accept the premise— Enbridge’s premise— that a concrete tunnel somehow eliminates concerns about safety. But why should anyone assume that encasing Line 5 in concrete makes it any less vulnerable? A concrete tunnel will only introduce a new and different set of risks. 

This week, Attorney General Nessel released her own statement on the matter. If talks with Enbridge fail to produce “a swift and straightforward resolution to this issue,” she announced, “I will use every resource available to our office to shut down Line 5 to protect our Great Lakes.” Nessel’s statement is carefully worded; she must surely know that any agreement that includes a tunnel will be neither swift nor straightforward. That leaves just one course of action.

In the twenty-first century Michigan’s political leaders have behaved like Rip Van Winkle. Having spent decades in a state of sleepy insensibility when it comes to the state’s energy infrastructure and freshwaters, they awakened to a new world after the disaster in Marshall in 2010. Yet they nevertheless continue to conduct themselves as if it’s still 1953, when it might have made sense to construct oil pipelines beneath the Great Lakes and when fossil fuel consumption seemed to have no consequences. But the world has changed. It’s not 1953 anymore and it’s long past time to stop acting like it is. Entertaining any solution to Line 5 other than its permanent removal from beneath the Straits makes our leaders—makes all of us—look as foolish as Rip when he mistakes the portrait of George Washington for a portrait of King George because he slept through the Revolution. We elected Governor Whitmer because she’s not a fool. She shouldn’t let Enbridge play her for one.