I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
On or about July 25, the Enbridge Energy Lakehead Pipeline 6B, which carries an estimated eight million gallons of oil a day across much of southern Michigan up to Sarnia, Ontario, suffered a six and a half foot rupture which spewed over one million gallons into the marsh land surrounding the pipeline, eventually reaching Talmadge Creek where it was transported down to the Kalamazoo River. In all, an estimated 30 miles of surface water were coated with crude oil.
The rupture point is located in an area commonly known as a Michigan wooded wetland. But it is difficult to access, and currently a restricted area as Enbridge, the Environmental Protection Agency and others work to clean up the contamination at the roughly five acre site.
Michigan Messenger did a fly over of the site and Talmadge Creek with officials from Enbridge Energy Partners on Wednesday morning.
Heavy equipment surrounds the exposed section of the Enbridge Lakehead Pipeline 6B that ruptured in late July spewing an estimated one million gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the rupture, has taken the 50 foot section of pipeline containing the rupture to Washington D.C. for further investigation.
In this image, the new section of pipeline can be seen partially installed. One end has been welded into place, while the other is still disconnected. Officials had hoped to finish the line fix sooner, but have been hampered by rains, the soggy soil and more. Shortly after this image was taken, the area was dowsed with more rain.
This area is approximately 100 yards from the pipeline rupture point and is where the wetland discharged water into the Talmadge Creek. Talmadge is to the right of this image, while the area to the left is the heavily oiled marshland soil and woods which stood between the line and Talmadge Creek.
This image shows Talmadge Creek just downstream from the rupture. The thick black soil of the marsh is visible along the banks. This is because the area has been scraped of the top layer of soil and plant life as part of the clean up effort. The orange paint marks identify points where workers have identified more oil.
Traveling down Talmadge Creek, one sees the tell tale signs of scraping of oil soaked soils along the shoreline. On either side, the EPA has built wooden plank roads on which to transport that contaminated soil back to the holding area.
As the clean up at what EPA calls ground zero continues, tons of oil saturated and contaminated soil has to be dug up and removed from the site. As the soil is removed it is put in these plastic lined holding points awaiting transfer to an EPA approved dumping location in Ohio.
This is a small pool created by low currents along the Talmadge Creek. The area is saturated with crude oil and workers continue to operate skimmers and vacuum trucks to recover the oil from this site.
This is the point where the Talmadge Creek enters the Kalamazoo River. Booms are stretched across the confluence in order to prevent any oil loosened by rains from getting further down stream. Workers continue to clean up oil-saturated soils in the area.
While much of the bulk oil has been removed from the Kalamazoo River, the shorelines continue to be covered in thick oil deposits. In order to clean that up, workers spray the coastline down with water, dislodging the oil, and sending it into the river. Booms are set up around the cleaning area to direct the oil flow into absorbent booms, the white booms seen here. Those booms absorb the oil then are removed.
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