Are we prepared for an oil spill on Great Lakes?

After the Enbridge pipeline ruptured and dumped a million gallons of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River last month, the oil was contained about 25 miles west of the rupture, long before reaching Lake Michigan. But with a spill that flowed directly into the Great Lakes a real possibility, a lack of transparency makes it difficult to determine how prepared we are for such an incident.

The Calhoun county pipeline that ruptured was in a marshy wetland on the edge of a creek, but other parts of the pipeline are in even more sensitive environmental areas. Enbridge’s pipeline network runs across both Michigan peninsulas near Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and Lake Huron and crosses the straits of Mackinac and the St. Clair River.

Pipeline 6B, which runs through lower Michigan and includes the spot of the rupture, is still shut down. Federal regulators have so far rejected the company’s restart plans. But at some point the oil will once again flow through the line and legislators and public bodies are urging closer attention to the matter in order to protect the Great Lakes.

The International Joint Commission is an advisory group established by treaty in 1909 to help the U.S. and Canadian governments find solutions to problems in the Great Lakes.

In an Aug. 6 letter to Congress the IJC warned that there are many pipelines carrying hazardous liquid substances across the U.S./Canadian water border and that the pipeline failure in Marshall has called into question the integrity of the entire network.

The IJC urged lawmakers to consider its 2006 report on spills in the Great Lakes. That report warned:

Significant improvements are required in binational spill information management and sharing, and coordination of spill prevention approaches. In addition, the Commission found that enhanced monitoring programs, accurate spill detection and simplified notification procedures are needed to reduce the harmful human and ecosystem impacts of spills.

It also stated that both countries need better communication with water users and that it is not clear who would be responsible for the cleanup costs of a major spill incident in shared waters.

Similar conclusions were reached in a 2006 Government Accountability Office report, Better Information and Targeted Prevention Efforts Could Enhance Spill Management in the St. Clair–Detroit River Corridor.

That report found that Canada and the U.S. don’t have an agreement on how to contact each other about spills or on what types of spills warrant reporting. It also found that many drinking water operators reported that they are not notified of spills in a timely manner.

According to information released by the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration after the oil spill in Marshall, numerous anomalies have been detected along this same pipeline in other spots. Yet it appears that federal regulators did not share information about these potential problems with state and local emergency responders.

Jeff Friedland, emergency services coordinator for St. Clair County where the Enbridge pipeline crosses the St. Clair River to Sarnia, Ontario, told the Michigan Messenger, “We’ve got 15 miles of [Enbridge’s 6B] line here. I don’t believe that we were ever notified that there were any issues with the pipeline.”

Corporate and government oil spill response plans are inaccessible

It’s hard to evaluate whether pipeline operators like Enbridge have plans that would successfully contain a spill near the Great Lakes.

Enbridge has not shared its emergency response plans and the Pipeline Safety and Hazardous Materials Administration says that it does not retain copies of these plans. A spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is serving as the on-scene coordinator for the government response to the pipeline break in Marshall, said that the agency took a copy of the emergency response plan from Enbridge’s office when it arrived to begin response coordination. So far the agency has declined to share the details of that plan.

The Clean Water Act requires the government to maintain its own oil spill contingency plans but it’s difficult to evaluate these because following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks they were classified as sensitive information — “For Official Use Only.”

Sub-area contingency plans from 2001 list specific sites of concern such as oil storage areas and pipelines, detail responsible parties and give local contact numbers for use in an emergency. Some of these plans are still posted on EPA’s website.

Bryan Swintek, enforcement chief for US Coast Guard Sector Lake Michigan, said that although the government oil spill response plans are no longer public they have been strengthened in recent years to include scenarios like natural disasters, terrorist threats and mass rescue.

“We have robust complete plans on how to respond to a whole bunch of disasters, we have identified Oil Spill Response Organizations (OSRO) and have booms on trailers ready to go all around the Lake,” he said. “Whether it is on Kalamazoo River or in Charlevoix, we have booms ready to go, pre-deployed.”

The Coast Guard is the lead response agency for spills that impact the Great Lakes and has jurisdiction over all federally regulated waterways — which generally means waterways large enough for commercial vessels to go through and waterways that connect to the oceans.

As soon as a spill happens near an area under Coast Guard jurisdiction the Guard sets trigger points for when it will become involved, he said.

In the case of the recent Kalamazoo River oil spill, the trigger point for Coast Guard involvement was set at 11 miles inland from Lake Michigan, though 12 Coast Guard liaisons were working with EPA officials further inland.

While the Coast Guard has responsibility for such spills in and next to the U.S. Great Lakes, the lack and cooperative plans with Canada could pose a problem in the case of a real spill. Four years after the International Joint Commission and the Government Accountability Office urged more oil spill preparation, it’s unclear what steps have been taken in response.

The stakes here are high. In addition to the damage such a spill could do to the ecosystem of the world’s largest system of fresh water lakes, the effect on human life could be enormous. Half of the state’s population — 5 million people — live along the 98 mile corridor formed by the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit River where an Enbridge pipeline passes through. 17 municipal drinking water facilities have intakes along that corridor.