Experts: Michigan should pass stricter pipeline rules

Pipeline safety experts are questioning the usefulness of the current federal regulatory system for pipelines and urging the state legislature to adopt new rules that will not leave Michigan reliant on an understaffed federal agency with inadequate regulatory authority to protect our natural resources.

Enbridge and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been criticized both for an inadequate system of inspections and monitoring before last week’s pipeline rupture that dumped an estimated million gallons of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River last week, and for a slow response once the leak occurred.

Enbridge appears to have waited hours to contact authorities after detecting the oil spill. Three days after the spill oil had spread over 25 miles of the Kalamazoo River and Governor Jennifer Granholm held a press conference to urge swifter action, calling the response “wholly inadequate.”

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for the regulation of pipelines, has confirmed that the site of the pipeline fracture is within a High Consequence Area — an ecologically sensitive or populated area where companies are required to conduct monitoring and submit emergency response plans — but whether they complied with those requirements is an open question.

It’s difficult to know whether Enbridge’s efforts to address the spill are conforming to an approved emergency response plan because the company has refused to release its emergency response plan — and though PHMSA requires Enbridge to maintain such a plan, it does not have that plan on file.

On Friday, July 30, PHMSA spokesperson Damon A. Hill told Michigan Messenger, “PHMSA does not retain copies of pipeline operator’s emergency response plans.”

In addition to the emergency response plan, federal regulations also require that pipeline operators conduct safety drills and public education around pipelines. The company has asserted that it has conducted drills with Michigan officials, but it is unclear when and with whom any such drills were conducted.

Nicole Lisabeth, spokeswoman for the Michigan State Police Emergency Response and Homeland Security Division, said that she was unaware of any involvement by her division in emergency drills with Enbridge, but allowed that local officials may have participated in such training. So far local officials have not confirmed that they drilled for pipeline safety.

Though Enbridge pipelines are known to cross numerous wetlands and rivers and even the straits of Mackinac, PHMSA officials and Enbridge have declined to identify the High Consequence Areas of their pipeline or discuss what steps have been taken to protect them from damage in the event of a spill.

Since the spill it has become clear that federal officials and Enbridge were in conversation about corrosion and other safety issues related to the pipeline that crosses Michigan between Griffith, Indiana and Sarnia, Ontario, but the concerns about safety do not appear to have been shared with local officials or residents around the pipelines.

All of those factors — weak monitoring, rare inspections, lack of response planning and dearth of public education and involvement — has pipeline safety experts up in arms.

“It is unbelievable that PHMSA does not keep copies of the spill plans,” said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust.

Spill plan availability has been a growing issue around the country, especially when new pipelines are being proposed. As those pipelines go through the Environmental Impact Statement review process people have been getting extremely frustrated that PHMSA will not make the spill response plans available as part of the environmental review. As the people of Michigan are learning, such spills are a clear threat to the environment, yet the plans that would help reduce or prevent such disasters are kept from public review, and are negotiated in secret between the industry and PHMSA. It’s ridiculous!

Weimer pointed out that federal pipeline safety law allows states to take on responsibility for regulating pipelines and that a state can require more transparency in pipeline safety planning. He points to Washington as a state that has done so.

“The public can come in and request to view an oil spill contingency plan,“ said Curt Hart, spokesman for the Spills Management Division of the Washington Dept. of Ecology. “It’s part of the public record. We also work with the companies and do oil spill preparedness drills. We want to make sure that they are ready to respond to anything from a small spill to a catastrophic spill.”

Under Washington law pipeline operators must demonstrate that they can meet state standards in responding to oil spills and the state oversees a system of continuous safety drills, including unannounced drills that test various elements of each operator’s emergency response plan.

Companies are required to notify the state of any anomalies found during monitoring.

“We require that companies that operate pipelines have oil spill contingency plans in place that pinpoint what the risks are to the environment,” Hart said. “We require them to stage equipment along pipelines so they can get to remote locations with response equipment quickly. We make sure they have resources to response to a worst case scenario spill on pipeline.”

Washington also maintains its own oil spill response force.

“If there is any oil spill that could possibly reach waters of the state they are required to immediately notify state,” Hart said. “The state has 24/7, 365 day a year response capability. We have a front line system so if there is an oil spill we can call out responders immediately who can work with the company and EPA.”

Washington law gives a detailed timeline for what is expected from pipeline operators after a spill. For example, in Vancouver county, pipeline operators must demonstrate that within 2 hours of a spill a safety assessment of the spill by work boat with trained crew and appropriate air monitoring, with 1,000 feet of boom could have arrived.

Hart said that Washington has taken these steps because pipelines there cross under many rivers that feed into Puget Sound. Experts like Weimer say Michigan should be no less vigilant with pipelines crossing the world’s largest source of freshwater, the Great Lakes.