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 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.