6 replies to this topic

[FamilyTreeClimber]

This may be one of the most damaging Midwest disasters that no one ever reported on.  It might be big news in Michigan, but out on the West Coast it got barely a whimper.

In case you didn't hear of this, two years ago, a pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada through Michigan ruptured and sent a massive amount of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River.

The report on how the disaster played out is finally finished.  Some things to note:

1.  Enbridge Oil knew about leaks in the pipe line 5 years earlier, but chose not to repair them.
2.  After the spill, it took 17 hours before Enbridge Oil was aware that there was a spill. I should clarify this.  They had warnings in the control room, but no one heeded them for 17 hours.
3.  Enbridge Oil had no emergency contingency plan in place in the event there was a spill because it was not required by the Federal Government.  It's come out that tar sands regulation is almost non-existent.
4.  So far it has cost $800 million to clean up the river.
5.  The clean up was far more difficult that when regular oil spills.  Normally, they try to skim the oil off the top and remove it that way.  But, tar sands oil sinks.  I heard on the radio they had to "shake" the water (disrupt it with machinery) and try to catch the oil as it unsettled.

As I understand it, there is tar sands oil from the spill still on the bottom of the Kalamazoo River.  I heard that on the radio, so I'm not sure it's in the articles.

There's more in this article:
http://www.examiner....ridge-oil-spill

A summary of the actual report can be found here:
http://www.ntsb.gov/...l_mi/index.html

It's really unsettling, though not surprising, how little oversight there is.  This idea that you leave it up to the corporation to do the right thing is a bunch of malarkey.

Enbridge claims that they have made several procedural changes.  I hope so, though I'm not holding my breath.  It's like PG&E and the San Bruno explosion all over again.


See also-
http://www.altenergy...w-how-to-do-it/

[Hayden]

Thanks for posting this! I've moved it to the correct forum and added the "see also" to the related thread.

[MyDigitalpoint]

FamilyTreeClimber, on 12 July 2012 - 11:39 PM, said:

This may be one of the most damaging Midwest disasters that no one ever reported on.  It might be big news in Michigan, but out on the West Coast it got barely a whimper.

This is an obvious press manipulation towards the upcoming presidential elections, as opposite to the coverage of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf coast a couple of years ago.

It's truly sad that politics weight more in the media than community and environmental concerns.

[FamilyTreeClimber]

I don't think it has to do with the presidential election at all.  I think it has to do with how powerful the oil industry is and the fact that the Republicans were pushing strongly for the Keystone Pipeline project when this happened.

How many days or weeks after the BP oil spill was it before we even heard that it might be a disaster?  It may have gotten a lot of coverage in the South.  The news on the West Coast pretty much ignored the story other than to say that there had been a leak.  Beyond NPR and PBS News Hour, I did not see the nightly news cover the BP spills much at all.  Beyond the first month, they got bored with it.

I think the burying of this story has a lot do with construction of the Keystone Pipeline.  Remember that conservatives in the House had been pushing hard for this project long before Obama made his move.  I am sure they thought if they could make the Kalamazoo River story go away (which it did), then the people in Nebraska and other states who were worried about the Keystone Pipeline damaging their water supplies wouldn't be concerned.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I hope no one objects, but I'm bumping both of our threads on this- FamilyTreeClimber has some good links
and the one I posted has more too.

This "We don't know how to clean up tar sands from the river systems" needs to brought to the attention
of everyone that may be considering that tar sands are not that bad.
Thanks all.

[Hardison]

Wow, it's sand that an oil spill of this magnitute was hushed up. Yep, on the West Coast, there wasn't any mentioned on this. At least, I didn't know about it.  What happened with the Gulf probably knocked this story right off the front page. Thanks for bring this to my attention.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Hardison, on 18 July 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

Wow, it's sand that an oil spill of this magnitute was hushed up. Yep, on the West Coast, there wasn't any mentioned on this. At least, I didn't know about it.  What happened with the Gulf probably knocked this story right off the front page. Thanks for bring this to my attention.

You're welcome but I have to give all the credit to Rachel Maddow.
She covers stories that no one else does.
NPR and PBS newshour is great for that too-covering stories the others don't.
And please read this one too-
it includes the links to her transcript of the story.
http://www.altenergy...w-how-to-do-it/