http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/enbridge-pipeline-inspections-fine-us-michigan-epa-oil-spill-1.4648276
[Sadly, that amount will not even get Enbridge's attention. About 0.001
fraction of settled claims so far.]
Enbridge fined $1.8M by U.S. regulator for missing pipe inspection deadlines
Michigan court deal ends latest legal battle related to massive 2010
Kalamazoo River oil spill
The Associated Press ·
Posted: May 04, 2018 8:49 AM MT | Last Updated: May 4
The U.S. government has fined Enbridge Inc. more than $1.8 million US
after accusing the Canadian oil transport company of missing deadlines
for pipeline inspections following a gigantic oil spill in southwestern
Michigan.
A federal court deal this week ended the latest legal skirmish resulting
from what the Environmental Protection Agency describes as the costliest
inland oil spill in U.S. history — and one of the largest.
Heavy crude from a ruptured pipe oozed into a creek feeding the
Kalamazoo River in July 2010, a disaster compounded when Enbridge
control centre personnel in Canada misread alarms and boosted the flow.
It took 17 hours for the company to realize what was happening.
Nearly 40 miles of the river, shorelines and wetlands were polluted.
Cleanup lasted four years and cost Enbridge more than $1 billion. The
company said 843,000 gallons of oil were released, while EPA put the
total at more than one million.
The Calgary, Alberta-based company reached $176 million consent decree
with U.S. regulators in 2016 that required inspections of additional
pipelines in Enbridge's Lakehead network, a web extending some 2,000
miles across seven states. The company would use tools that could detect
cracks, corrosion and other flaws inside pipes.
But EPA and a third-party monitor working with the government concluded
that six inspections conducted last year did not meet the time frame
under the settlement.
Enbridge denied violating the agreement, saying there was an honest
dispute over when the clock had started. The internal checks were
finished and no safety concerns found, spokesman Michael Barnes said
Thursday.
Company agreed to pay penalty
"To ensure focus on safe operation of the pipelines and to maintaining
our commitments under the consent decree, we have agreed to pay a
penalty to resolve the matter," Barnes said. We have reached agreement
on the inspection schedule going forward."
Spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle of the U.S. Department of Justice, which
represented EPA, declined to comment on the settlement, which was filed
Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Western Michigan.
Two of the inspections were of sections of Line 5, which runs between
Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario. Neither involved a nearly
5-mile-long underwater segment in the Straits of Mackinac, the channel
that connects Lakes Michigan and Huron, which received several dents
from a suspected tugboat anchor strike last month and is the subject of
public debate over its safety.
The settlement also noted concerns about the reliability of a tool used
previously for inspecting Line 2, which runs from Edmonton, Alberta, to
Superior, Wisconsin. It said the company would work with vendors to
develop a model that could better detect cracks and determine their size.