Kalamazoo River oil spill

The spill

On Sunday, July 25, 2010, at about 5:58 p.m. EDT, a 40 ft pipe segment ruptured in the 30 in Enbridge Energy Line 6B, approximately 0.6 mi downstream of the Marshall, Michigan pump station. The rupture caused a spill of diluted bitumen originating from Canada (Alberta and Saskatchewan) into Talmadge Creek in Calhoun County, Michigan, which flows into the Kalamazoo River. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) later estimated the spill to be in excess of 1 e6USgal. On 29 July 2010, the Calhoun County Health Department asked 30 to 50 households to evacuate, and twice as many were advised not to drink their water.

Alarms sounded in Enbridge's Edmonton headquarters at the time of the rupture, but control-room staff were unable to interpret them with certainty and remained unaware of the pipeline breach. It was eighteen hours before a Michigan utilities employee reported spilt oil and the company learned of the breach. For much of that time the operators had shut down the pipeline, so that the bitumen mixture escaped comparatively slowly. However, they had thought the alarms were possibly caused by a bubble in the pipeline, causing anomalous pressure readings, and had restarted the line twice. Because of this, for a few hours in total the leak was much larger.

The oil was contained to a 25 mi stretch of the Kalamazoo River as several hundred workers took part in the cleanup. Regional EPA Director Susan Hedman estimated that it would take weeks to remove the bulk of the oil from the river, several months to clear oil from the flood plains, and several more months to clean the oil out of the marsh where the spill originated. However, a year later, a 35-mile stretch of the river remained closed. Originally estimated at US$5 million, by September 2011, cleanup costs passed $585 million and were expected to rise by 20 percent. The cleanup expense by summer 2012 had totalled $765 million.

Aftermath

In June, 2012, authorities reopened most of the 35 mi of the river that had been closed to recreation after the spill. Part of the river at the Morrow Lake delta remained closed and other sections of the river remain restricted because of the ongoing cleanup of the oil sands product called diluted bitumen (dilbit) the pipeline had been transporting.

The United States Department of Transportation summer 2012 "fined Enbridge $3.7 million dollars and as part of that fine they listed 22 probable violations that happened relating to the spill. And several of those [violations] are about what happened in the [Edmonton] control room".

One of the reasons for the vast escalation in time and expense of cleanup was that the EPA had never handled a dilbit spill. In addition, it is reported that Enbridge never informed the EPA of the product distinction. Dilbit, like all crude oil, floats in water but, over time, will sink, complicating cleanup efforts, particularly if dredging is considered too ecologically damaging.

In July 2016, Enbridge agreed to pay $177 million in penalties and improved safety measures in a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

National Transportation Safety Board investigation

In July 2012, the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. federal agency with regulatory authority over the failed pipeline, issued a report representing the official conclusion of the investigation into the incident. The investigators found that the operating firm, which had received an automated signal from the pipeline that a breach had occurred, misunderstood or did not believe the signal and attempted to continue to pump dilbit oil through the pipeline for 17 hours after the breach. Local firefighters were notified, and tried to locate the southern Michigan wetland site of the breach, but were initially unable to do so, further delaying the shutdown of the line.{{cite web

The NTSB investigation synopsis pointed to corrosion fatigue as the underlying cause of the catastrophic breach. The incident was exacerbated by the pipeline's disbonded polyethylene tape coating. In July 2012, the cost of the cleanup operations was estimated at $767 million. The NTSB stated the Enbridge dilbit oil spill is, as of 2012, the costliest onshore cleanup in U.S. history. NTSB Chair Deborah Hersman likened "Enbridge's poor handling" of the spill to the Keystone Cops, asking: "Why didn't they recognize what was happening, and what took so long?" NPR reported that "NTSB investigators determined that the 6 ft gash in the pipe was caused by a flaw in the outside lining which allowed the pipe to crack and corrode. Now, in 2005, Enbridge actually had learned that this section of pipe was cracked and corroding. ... That same 2005 internal report pointed to 15,000 defects in the 40-year-old pipeline. And Enbridge decided not to dig up this [Talmadge Creek] area to inspect it."

In 2013, in opining on the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, the EPA recommended to the State Department that pipelines that carry bitumen should no longer be treated just like pipelines that carry any other oil. Stephen Hamilton, an ecology professor at Michigan State University and the independent science adviser at Talmadge Creek, detailed the challenges and expense of the still-ongoing Michigan cleanup.

Additional dredging under 2013 order

The EPA issued an Order for Removal in 2013 which required Enbridge to remove oil-contaminated sediment from specific locations along the Kalamazoo River, including the three areas where submerged oil was most pronounced:

• Upstream of the Ceresco Dam (along Riverside Farm)
• Mill Ponds area
• Morrow Lake, Morrow Lake Delta and adjacent areas
• Sediment traps at two designated locations

By the fall of 2014, Enbridge had completed the remaining obligations under the 2013 Order for Removal, including the dredging of oil-contaminated sediment. Based on the successful completion of the work by Enbridge, the EPA transitioned the oversight of the remaining obligations to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in 2014.

Safer oil and gas transportation; renewable energy

One of the results of the Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo River is that two fossil fuel companies with operations in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area have additional technology in use to assist oil and gas that is transported. These same two companies, Wolverine Oil and Gas and the Anton Williams Holding Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan and have also increased their usage of renewable energy in operations in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Gallery

File:Photo of ruptured segment of pipeline from Enbridge Incorporated Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Rupture and Release Marshall, Michigan July 25, 2010 (33428475430).jpg | Ruptured segment of pipeline File:EPA's response to the Enbridge oil spill (4855267070).jpg | Oiled vegetation upstream of Ceresco Dam File:EPA's response to the Enbridge oil spill (4858155642).jpg | More than 700 residents filled Marshall high school to learn about the government response to the spill File:Overview Map (4887995429).jpg | Overview map of the affected areas of Talmadge Creek, Kalamazoo River and Morrow Lake File:Contaminated soil (4888593988).jpg | A crew picking up contaminated soil along the banks of the Kalamazoo River File:Oiled Goose (4884647493).jpg | A heavily oiled Canada goose File:EPA's response to the Enbridge oil spill (4855267114).jpg | Response operations near the source of the spill on Talmadge Creek near the Kalamazoo River

References

References

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2. (2015-11-19). "The Dilbit Disaster: Inside The Biggest Oil Spill You've Never Heard Of".
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7. link. (2014-01-18 , ''[[Living on Earth]]'', July 6, 2012. Lisa Song, a reporter for [[InsideClimate News]], interviewed by Bruce Gellerman. Retrieved 2013-01-01.
   At the time the alarms first sounded the operators were in process of shutting the line down for routine maintenance.)
8. (1 August 2010). "EPA notes improvements at Michigan oil spill site". Google News.
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11. Ellison, Garret. (6 November 2014). "New price tag for Kalamazoo River oil spill cleanup: Enbridge says $1.21 billion". Grand Rapids Press.
12. Lawrence, E., (June 21, 2012). [http://www.freep.com/article/20120621/NEWS06/120621067/Kalamazoo-River-Enbridge-oil-spill Most of Kalamazoo River now open following July 2010 Enbridge oil spill] {{Webarchive. link. (2014-07-26 . ''Detroit Free Press''.)
13. Valerie Volcovici. (July 20, 2016). "U.S., Enbridge reach $177 million pipeline spill settlement". [[Reuters]].
14. (May 2017). "Enbridge to Spend up to $500 million more on Northern Gateway safety".
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16. EPA. (27 July 2010). "EPA Response to Enbridge Spill in Michigan". United States Environmental Protection Agency.
17. Shogren, Elizabeth, [https://www.npr.org/2013/04/24/178844620/tar-sands-pipelines-should-get-special-treatment-epa-says "EPA: Tar Sands Pipelines Should Be Held To Different Standards"] {{Webarchive. link. (2018-08-08 , NPR, April 24, 2013. [http://epa.gov/compliance/nepa/keystone-xl-project-epa-comment-letter-20130056.pdf Link to EPA letter to State Department.] {{Webarchive). link. (2013-04-22 Retrieved 2013-04-24.)
18. United States Environmental Protection Agency [http://www3.epa.gov/region5/enbridgespill/ar/enbridge-AR-1720.pdf] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-10-15 In the Matter of Enbridge Energy, Limited Partnership - Order for Removal Under Section 311(c) of the Clean Water Act. Retrieved: 2015-11-24.)
19. United States Environmental Protection Agency [http://www3.epa.gov/region5/enbridgespill/] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-11-09 EPA's Response to the Enbridge Oil Spill. Retrieved: 2015-11-24.)
20. "Wolverine Gas and Oil Corporation – Energy Exploration in Partnership with the Environment".
21. "ARWHC".