{"id":3516,"date":"2014-09-28T18:54:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-28T22:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/?p=3516"},"modified":"2014-09-28T19:36:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T23:36:56","slug":"enbridges-latest-dirty-trick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/09\/28\/enbridges-latest-dirty-trick\/","title":{"rendered":"Enbridge’s Latest Dirty Trick"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Enbridge is up to some dirty tricks.<\/p>\n

Before we explain, we need to share\u00a0something positive. A few months back, we had some fairly serious problems on our property related to pipeline construction that needed to be addressed. After more phone calls and emails than should have been necessary,\u00a0we finally touched base with our\u00a0land agent, who\u00a0took up our concerns, called in the restoration contractors to see what could be done to resolve our problems, and followed through on resolving the issues. Because of those contractors in particular, it turned out to be one of the best, if not\u00a0the best, experiences we’ve had with Enbridge since this project began.<\/p>\n

That\u00a0new restoration contractor is Bowman’s Excavating. A while ago,\u00a0we’d heard some good things about Bowman’s<\/a> from some of our fellow landowners. We’re glad to report that we, too, think they’re doing excellent work and that, unlike Enbridge’s previous contractors– careless outfits from Wisconsin and Idaho–we believe that the crew at Bowman’s genuinely wants to do right by landowners and therefore treats them with respect and works hard to makes sure they’re well taken care of. We’re sure such care and responsiveness\u00a0has a lot to do with the fact that Bowman’s is\u00a0a local company. And unlike Enbridge<\/a>, the good people from Bowman’s really are our neighbors. Honestly, based on our dealings with\u00a0Bowman’s, we can’t say enough good things about\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

The sad part, however, is that\u00a0they may be\u00a0stretched a little thin, since they’ve been tasked with RE-DOING pretty much ALL of the restoration work along Phase One– because the “work” done by Enbridge’s first contractor was so bad, so shoddy, and so terribly sloppy. Because Enbridge hired such thoughtless, hurried\u00a0contractors the first time around and allowed them to get away with\u00a0a bunch of\u00a0half-assed\u00a0work,\u00a0Enbridge\u00a0is\u00a0now paying a new<\/em> contractor to do it all over again. How’s that for efficiency and good business? We’ve heard tales that those other crews are still around working on Phase Two, though we’re not certain. But we will offer this bit of advice for Phase Two landowners: if you see trucks from Indianhead Pipeline (they’re from Wisconsin) or Blue\u00a0Sky Construction (from Idaho) in\u00a0your area, contact your land agent and tell him or her that you’d rather have Bowman’s doing restoration on your property.<\/p>\n

Now to our main\u00a0point: while this latest interaction was for us, on the whole, a very positive one, it was very nearly spoiled when our land agent asked us to sign a document releasing Enbridge from further restoration obligations as a precondition<\/em> to settling our outstanding problems. We had heard some stories that Enbridge was pulling this trick with other landowners. So we weren’t altogether surprised. But we were taken aback,\u00a0particularly since the problems we\u00a0were settling\u00a0had nothing to do with restoration; they were about damages to our property. For that reason, the demand that we\u00a0sign off on restoration sounded\u00a0to us like some kind of extortion tactic, an attempt to strong-arm us into releasing Enbridge from further obligation– and that’s exactly how we responded at the time. Fortunately, the agents backtracked before we really blew our stack. And while we have great confidence that Bowman’s has done a great job restoring\u00a0our property, we\u00a0have not signed off on restoration nor are we under any kind of obligation to do so–now or ever. Neither is any other landowner, despite what a land agent may tell you. You may choose to\u00a0sign one of those waivers, but you do NOT\u00a0have to.<\/p>\n

But here’s the bigger problem: we know that Enbridge has been employing this tactic with lots of other landowners as well: withholding restitution owed for damages and other things\u00a0(like those makeup payments<\/a>) until landowners agree to sign off on restoration. We think almost anyone would agree that this is wrong, unfair, unethical, and certainly unneighborly. We can’t help but wonder if Enbridge’s senior executives know about this or whether it’s some scheme cooked up by the land services department<\/a>. More importantly, we can’t help but wonder whether this coercive little ploy is\u00a0even legal. Perhaps some of our readers from the law firm of Fraser Trebilcock Davis & Dunlap<\/a>\u00a0can look into that question and let us know. In the meantime, we’re going to see if\u00a0any of the journalists we know can find that out. We’re also going to ask the Consumer Protection Division of the Michigan Attorney General’s office what they think about it.<\/p>\n

We’ll let you know what we learn. In the meantime, we would recommend that you not allow Enbridge to pressure\u00a0you into signing any documents releasing them from further restoration obligations if you do not feel completely, totally, 100% comfortable doing so. Enbridge has a legal obligation to restore your property to pre-construction condition and to compensate you for damages incurred during construction– and that obligation is NOT contingent upon you signing any documents whatsoever. Don’t let your land agent tell you otherwise. But don’t just take our word for it. If\u00a0you’re not sure what to do, contact an attorney.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enbridge is up to some dirty tricks. Before we explain, we need to share\u00a0something positive. A few months back, we had some fairly serious problems on our property related to pipeline construction that needed to be addressed. After more phone calls and emails than should have been necessary,\u00a0we finally touched base with our\u00a0land agent, who\u00a0took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conduct","category-negotiations","category-legal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516","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=3516"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3525,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516\/revisions\/3525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}