Workers raise more safety concerns for oil cleanup

BATTLE CREEK — A group of workers taking part in the effort to clean up a million gallons of oil spilled into the Kalamazoo River are leveling new allegations of contractors and subcontractors ignoring worker safety regulations and threatening employees who complained of such violations.

All of the workers are HAZWOPER certified, meaning they are licensed for the handling of hazardous materials including oil, and spoke with Michigan Messenger on the condition of anonymity because they want to continue working on the Kalamazoo river cleanup effort. The cleanup effort is the result of a July 25 pipeline rupture which spewed more than one million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River and a tributary.

That pipeline is owned by Enbridge Energy Partners, a Canadian company with U.S. subsidiaries. The company has hired Garner Environmental from Texas to oversee cleanup efforts on its behalf. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken direct command of the clean up efforts.

Workers for Garner and its various subcontractors have signed nondisclosure agreements, but the workers who spoke to Michigan Messenger say that injuries at the work site are ignored or treated with little urgency. Workers said requesting medical attention was discouraged, with the implication being that their jobs would be on the line if they demanded medical care.

“They tell you, if you ask to see a doctor or for medical attention, you will have a blue mark next to your name,” said one worker.

“They tell you the blue mark means nothing good for you with the company,” said another.

The whistleblowers told of one incident in which a worker got oil directly in his eye. Supervisors from Garner and a subcontractor chose to flush the crude oil from his eye with saline solution. Once that was completed, the worker was sent back to work.

That worker, a few hours later had what the whistleblowers described as pus or discharge issuing from the affected eye. Supervisors again chose to rinse the eye with saline solution, and send the worker back to work rather than seek medical attention.

The eye injury was never reported.

Garner has been under increasing scrutiny after a Michigan Messenger investigation uncovered that one of its subcontractors had employed undocumented workers in unsafe working conditions.

The subcontractor was fired less than 24 hours after the Messenger report came out, and on Wednesday last week, workers from the company were arrested in Winnie, Texas. They were on buses chartered by Phillip Hallmark and his company Hallmark Industrial, the subcontractor the Messenger investigation identified.

Garner has declined numerous media interview requests, including from Michigan Messenger. Enbridge says Garner appears to have been unaware of the undocumented workers on the river, or the unsafe conditions they were being subjected to.

The original Messenger story documented that workers were toiling on the river for as many as 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Pictures provided by a confidential source showed workers eating food and drinking water while still dressed in clean up gear covered in oil.

Workers tell Messenger that raising issues about safety and working conditions were regularly met with threats to their jobs.

“If you complained, they tell you, ‘we’re going to send you back on the next boat,’” a worker said. “If they did that, you know when you get back to the buses, you didn’t have a job no more.”

Another worker said that raising safety concerns resulted in some workers being labeled as “lazy” by supervisors from the subcontractor and Garner.