Oil and Water

Loreen Niewenhuis is an author, adventurer, and Great Lakes speaker. She has completed a trilogy of 1,000-mile adventures exploring the Great Lakes and has written three books about the Great Lakes [A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach *a Heartland Indie Bestseller*, A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Walk *winner of the Great Lakes Great Reads Award*, and A 1,000-Mile Great Lakes Island Adventure]. To learn more about her work, or to book her as a speaker, go to http://LakeTrek.com

There are underground and underwater pipelines carrying oil throughout the Great Lakes Basin. 

Map of pipelines

Five years ago, this reality became shockingly apparent in southwest Michigan when one of Enbridge Energy Company's pipelines ruptured near Marshall, Michigan spilling nearly a million gallons of heavy crude oil into a creek that fed into the Kalamazoo River. 

The Kalamazoo River flows through Battle Creek where I currently live. It has taken years and hundreds of millions of dollars to clean it up.

Enbridge owns and maintains many of the pipelines in the basin, including the one submerged in the water at the Straits of Mackinac (the 5-mile wide waterway separating Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas). This pipeline is 61 years old. 

"I can't even imagine if we had some kind of spill that sent oil into the Great Lakes," said US Senator Stabenow. "We remember what happened in the Kalamazoo (River)."

"After experiencing one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history, Michiganders know all too well that a pipeline break can have devastating consequences for our environment and our economy,” said US Senator Peters. "One can imagine what a disaster it would be for a similar oil spill to occur in the Great Lakes."

A study done at the University of Michigan found that a rupture in this pipeline would devastate the Great Lakes. Read about that study HERE. 

Michigan's U.S. Senators Stabenow and Peters have teamed up to propose legislation to protect our Great Lakes from oil spills. Even if you're not a Michigander (or even living in the Great Lakes Basin), this is sound legislation to protect these inland seas containing 84% of the fresh, surface water in North America. 

Read more about the legislation HERE.

And contact your representatives in Congress if you support its passage.

Enbridge Pipeline: New pipe installed in Michigan and Indiana

Enbridge is replacing a large portion of the pipeline that spilled ~1 million gallons of oil in Michigan.

 The pipeline will be buried soon. It runs underneath farmland, past homes, near wetlands.

 Here's a bit of video shot near the new pipeline:

Enbridge Pipeline: Replacing the section that leaked

Enbridge Oil Pipeline Spill...3 Years Later

Three years ago, an underground oil pipeline operated by Enbridge Energy Partners (Enbridge) ruptured and leaked over a million gallons of heavy tar sands oil into a creek just east of where I live. The creek (Talmadge Creek) flowed into the Kalamazoo River which flows through the center of my town, Battle Creek. In the early days of the leak, it smelled like every road in the county had just been paved with hot asphalt. But it was just the stench from the lighter parts of the oil evaporating off the river into the air. 

While some of the oil was captured in booms and skimmed off the top of the water, the heavier part of the oil sank to the bottom of the river. Enbridge skimmed the rivers, then spent the second year agitating the riverbed to liberate the heavier portion and gather it for disposal. 

Then, Enbridge tried to walk away from the site 
saying it was taken care of.

That's when the EPA again tested the riverbed and estimated that at least 80,000 gallons (and as much as three times that amount) still remains submerged in the river.

So, the clean-up of the largest pipeline spill in America's history is in its third year. Sections of the river are closed, heavy machinery and conveyance piping to remove the toxic sludge will be brought in and assembled.

This spill contaminated 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River...which flows into Lake Michigan. The spill was contained before it reached the Great Lake, but it did contaminate Lake Morrow about 80 miles inland from Lake Michigan.

For insight into the tar sands mining operation in Alberta where this toxic, sludgy form of petroleum is mined, watch this Ted Talk. 

For the latest on clean-up efforts in the Kalamazoo River, go here.

Enbridge is working to DOUBLE the amount of tar sands oil they  move through pipelines to refineries in Michigan and Ohio. 
Read about it here.

Enbridge Oil Pipeline Rupture, 2 1/2 years after the incident

In July of 2010, an oil pipeline ruptured in Michigan spilling 1.1 million gallons of heavy crude into the Kalamazoo River.

Over two years and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent cleaning up the river.

This was the nation's 

costliest oil pipeline accident.

Consider this:  Enbridge has a pipeline that rests at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac. What if the rupture had taken place there instead of inland and contained in a river?  Would the shores of Mackinac Island still be coated in thick oil? How much of that spill would now be working its way down past Port Huron, Detroit, and into Lake Erie? 

Do you think it can't happen? Enbridge pipelines have had a dozen leaks in the state of Michigan alone since 2003. 

I walked along the river earlier this month: