{"id":2782,"date":"2013-09-11T17:30:41","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T21:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/?p=2782"},"modified":"2013-09-14T15:09:12","modified_gmt":"2013-09-14T19:09:12","slug":"empty-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2013\/09\/11\/empty-promises\/","title":{"rendered":"“Empty Promises”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few interesting news items this week have got our gears turning a little– not the least of which is this chilling story about PHMSA in Inside Climate News today<\/a> (you’ll recall that we’ve had some things to say about PHMSA<\/a> in the recent past). If we can find the time, we hope to ruminate on them a little. In the meantime, we’re continuing our series<\/a> of “Landowner Stories<\/a>” in their own words<\/a>. Today, a handful of short takes:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As one of the unfortunate landowners along the 6B pipeline who had to deal with the repair portion of the project, we have been dealing with Enbridge since early 2011. They didn\u2019t do a good job then and they have not yet finished restoration on our property.<\/p>\n

Our biggest complaint is that they approached us badly from the start. The first message we got from them was \u201cdo this our way or we will take you to court\u201d. When we think about replacement of a pipeline we think \u201cremove the old one and put in a new one.\u201d\u00a0 But of course their plan was \u201cgive us more land that we can ruin and let the landowner pay the property taxes forever while we make billions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, we have not been properly represented by our local, county, state or federal governments. We ask \u201chow can a foreign entity come into Michigan and demand the use of property through eminent domain\u201d? It seems terribly wrong.<\/p>\n

\u2014Ron Kardos and Marjorie Brigham-Kardos,\u00a0<\/em>Oceola Township<\/em><\/p>\n

The past year has been hell!! \u00a0We are far from a settlement on restoration and damages, as they relate to the condemnation of our farm.\u00a0Nothing has been done. We live with weeds up to my waist, dust when it’s dry, mud when it rains.\u00a0We TRIED to come to an agreement in six separate meetings. Enbridge lied, bullied, attempted coercion, telling me they didn’t need to cut down 25 feet of my forest and would go around part of my wetlands, if only I would sign without my husband present and no legal counsel review of the contract. Would I sign the Enbridge contract if I had to do over? \u00a0ABSOLUTELY NOT!!<\/p>\n

I hope to have the opportunity to tell our story to a jury. I want Enbridge to have to explain their behavior in Court. I want Enbridge’s dirty dealings to be a matter of public record.<\/p>\n

\u2014Carol Brimhall,\u00a0<\/em>Stockbridge<\/em><\/p>\n

Even though I am no youngster (in my sixties)\u00a0you would think I would know better; but I\u00a0was surprised to\u00a0witness the absolute worst of human nature this last year.\u00a0\u00a0From the first contact with the greedy, dishonest land agent to the\u00a0unbelievably arrogant workers I saw extremes of\u00a0every bad trait in human nature. Probably one of the worst parts of the experience this last year was the rude awakening that our government, from local township, to State Representative, Senator, and Governor, Public Service Commission, all do not care ONE SINGLE BIT what happens to the homeowners on the pipeline. It was a case of “if it isn’t adversely affecting me personally, then I don’t care”. \u00a0It would take forever to list every terrible event,\u00a0but the worst days may have been seeing Enbridge Oil violate the temporary work space and trespass on our property (again and again). Most\u00a0days last winter required us to be outside in snowstorms, all day long sometimes to protect our personal property from being damaged by their equipment and\u00a0snarky employees.<\/p>\n

I think I can sum it up by saying, I believe Enbridge Oil gives potential hires an ethics test. But, if they pass it, then they don’t hire them!<\/p>\n

\u2014Anon.,\u00a0<\/em>Groveland Twp.<\/em><\/p>\n

The finishing touches were a little slow, but so far all promises have been kept. Fingers crossed!<\/p>\n

\u2014Robert Flynn,\u00a0<\/em>Howell<\/em><\/p>\n

No restoration has begun on our property except for the septic field\u00a0replacement that was\u00a0compromised by Enbridge in the first place.\u00a0No phone calls are being returned.\u00a0No answers are being received.\u00a0My husband Dave is so upset over this that he had a stroke last Saturday.\u00a0We need more than empty promises.\u00a0Our backyard is disgusting.\u00a0Enbridge is a corporate bully who terrorizes their landowners.\u00a0This has been a nightmare for the past 3 years of our lives.\u00a0We want our fences back and the promised restoration completed without\u00a0anymore lies.<\/p>\n

\u2014Judy Tanciar,\u00a0<\/em>Fenton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few interesting news items this week have got our gears turning a little– not the least of which is this chilling story about PHMSA in Inside Climate News today (you’ll recall that we’ve had some things to say about PHMSA in the recent past). If we can find the time, we hope to ruminate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landowner-stories","category-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2793,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions\/2793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}