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.

Increasing amount of Tar Sands oil coming into Great Lakes

I live in Battle Creek, Michigan, just a few miles downstream from the largest (~1 million gallons) tar sands oil disaster ever spilled on American soil.

Enbridge Energy was responsible for this spill in 2011, and they have been cleaning it up for the past four years. They tried to walk away from the job claiming it was complete last year, but the EPA called them back to continue efforts to remove the heavy oil sludge that had settled to the river bottom.

Info about this spill and clean-up here.

Enbridge has just received approval to almost double the amount of tar sands oil flowing through their pipeline that terminates in Superior, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior.

Info on this approval and how it was obtained is here.

A larger problem with the mining and transport of this oil product -- beyond the fact that is much more difficult and detrimental to our environment to refine than oil from other sources -- is that Canada is allowing the destruction of their boreal forests 
to reach these oil sands.

The boreal forests are one of the largest natural carbon dioxide "sinks" in the world. These temperate forests constantly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen.

For more info on this, watch this TED Talk here. 

I fear that we will reach a point where the cascade of environmental destruction will be irreversible. Where the change in our atmosphere will reach a tipping point and all of our efforts to backpedal will be pointless.

This latest move by the State Department to approve this increase in flow of tar sands oil into the Great Lakes is a bad decision even if there is never a spill into the Great Lakes.

If there is a large spill, 

then the decision may well be catastrophic.

It is one thing to clean up a river (it takes years and costs about a billion dollars -- details here), but how would one restore the Great Lakes once a million gallons of tar sands oil -- or more --  corrupts the largest fresh water system in the world?

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:

Keystone XL Pipeline Rejected

President Obama rejected the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline this week. This pipeline was to stretch from Alberta, Canada, 1,700 miles across America's heartland to refineries in Texas.

You may wonder why I'm blogging about this issue when it doesn't seem to relate to the Great Lakes or Michigan. Well, check out these photos:





These are photos of the oil spill in West Michigan that happened less than two years ago. There is an oil pipeline running through Michigan that ruptured and spilled approximately one MILLION gallons of heavy, crude oil into the Kalamazoo River. Enbridge, the company that owns and maintains the pipeline, has spent over a year cleaning up the river and there is still residual damage to the ecosystem.

Some of the homes near the source of the spill were so contaminated that Enbridge bought out the owners and condemned the houses.

The Keystone XL Pipeline's proposed route passes through many environmentally sensitive areas, not to mention America's breadbasket where much of our grain is grown.

Yes, job creation is important, but it is about time that government had a vision for the future. And that vision should be looking for cleaner sources of energy. Refining oil from Alberta's oil sands is a much more toxic process than refining heavy or light crude. And the byproducts are not only more toxic, but in greater quantity.

I applaud President Obama's decision. No doubt this issue will be pressed again in the future, and I hope his resolve and vision are not shaken.

Enbridge Oil Spill...one year later

Efforts to clean up the Kalamazoo River continue one year after a leaking oil pipeline allowed over 800,000 gallons of crude oil to spill into the Kalamazoo River. For weeks following the spill, my home town of Battle Creek smelled of the thick, crude oil for weeks. People living near the origin of the spill had to leave their homes due to the smell and toxic effects of the spill.

The EPA is overseeing the clean-up. Here are the stats to help put it in perspective:

766,000 gallons of oil have been recovered
15 million gallons of oil/water mix have been recovered and disposed of
93,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil/debris have been disposed of
19,500 feet of boom have been deployed on the river
clean-up has cost $25.7 million so far
245 workers involved in these efforts

Enbridge Oil Spill Clean-up Continues

The Enbridge oil spill may not be on the national news anymore, but the clean-up efforts continue. I had been meaning to get out to see the progress for some time, but had been rained out several times. Yesterday -- Sunday --- I was finally able to drive to the site and was surprised to see the efforts fully underway even on the weekend.















Much of the booming and skimming efforts downstream of the spill have stopped since the oil has now been contained closer to the spill site.

The segment of the pipe that ruptured has been removed and replaced. Enbridge is testing the pipeline before they turn the flow of crude back on.

Pipelines. They've been causing a lot of trouble lately.

The Worst Oil Spill in the History of the Great Lakes

The EPA now estimates that 1 million gallons of crude oil have been released from the ruptured Enbridge Energy pipeline. Much of that oil has made its way into the Kalamazoo River.














I traveled further downstream from the spill today. The efforts to boom and skim the oil are underway at several points on the river.

The first two photos are on the river in Galesburg, 20 miles downstream from the spill. The sheen was light here, but still evident.




The photo to the left shows the power plant on Morrow Lake. There is a dam here and officials were hopeful that this barrier along with booms could be used to contain the oil.

In Comstock, just downstream from this dam, I saw a light sheen on the edges of the water where it had pooled in the shallows.

Below is video I shot today.

Oil Spill in West Michigan Heading Toward Lake Michigan

The overpowering smell of oil on the river is a much stronger warning than the signs which are posted for miles along the Kalamazoo River. I stopped at three points along the river for maybe 15 minutes total, and came away with a fierce headache.















This river flows through the center of Battle Creek (where I live), then through the towns of Galesburg, Kalamazoo, Plainwell, and Allegan. Then, finally, between the cities of Douglas and Saugatuck before joining LAKE MICHIGAN. There are many wetlands along the way and the river harbors much wildlife. I've kayaked stretches of this river and have seen deer, turtles, blue heron, trout, and muskrat.

Estimates of the amount of oil have been raised to one million gallons. Why was the oil allowed to gush for hours before the flow in the pipeline was shut off? We're still waiting for an answer from Enbridge Energy.

The last photo here is of the Ceresco Dam in Marshall. The EPA is using a Coast Guard helicopter to survey the extent of the spill. This is just a mile or two from origin of the spill. The second photo shows how the crude oil is gathering in the vegetation.

Watch the video below for a closer look at the spill.