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.
A hole in Stockbridge revealing Lakehead Pipeline 6B. The line can be seen in the lower right corner of the photo, being held up by special tools to prevent bowing. In the center of the picture the metal sleeves that can be welded over the line as a fix can be seen.
The line was shut down Nov. 17 at about 9 p.m. Enbridge spokesman Mike Smith told Michigan Messenger last week. The decision to shut the line down was made when a new tool used to measure the condition of the pipeline indicated a total of four anomalies in the line just outside the village of Stockbridge in southern Ingham county.
The company decided to shut the line down and examine the pipe in part to determine the accuracy of the new tool, called a smart pig. Enbridge spent Nov. 18 getting permits to dig up three locations, all within in 2 miles of each other. On Friday, the company took media crews to a dig site on Chambers Road. On the drive down M-52, the two other sites could be seen on either side of the state highway.
At the site the media was allowed to access steel sleeves which can be used to create a new outside of the pipeline were stacked on the edge of the hole housing the exposed pipeline. Smith said the sleeves were there “just in case.”
The middle site, which media was not allowed to access because it was on private property, include a caution taped out area from the dig site all the way to M-52 — a distance of several hundred yards.
The pipeline has drawn attention because in July the line ruptured in Marshall, spewing an estimated one million gallons of Cold Lake Crude oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The line transports 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Illinois, across Michigan and into Sarnia, Ontario. A trunk line feeds off the Lakehead 6B in Stockbridge and feeds into refineries in Toledo. It remained shut down after the spill until Sept. 27.
The start up was approved after the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rejected one start up plan, and required additional safety measures for the resubmission of the plan. Under the restart authorization, Enbridge was required to have a third party supervise the restart, and the line was not allowed to function over a fraction of the maximum pressure.
The delay was caused in part because PHMSA records showed that the line had hundreds of anomalies requiring dig and inspect action by the company within 60 days. The company had not addressed many of those anomalies, and had just days before the Marshall ruptured requested an additional two years to complete dig and inspection operations on the line. The anomalies began just above Marshall heading towards the terminal in Sarnia, officials have said. But that extension request was rejected in September and Enbridge was ordered to include a schedule to address those anomalies as part of the start up plan.
In addition to the low pressure start up, Enbridge was required to conduct additional inline inspections to determine the extent of anomalies in the line in Michigan. Smith said he it was unknown if the new inspection tool had discovered new anomalies, or if it had detected old anomalies.
One of the anomalies that concerned Congressman Mark Schauer (D-Bedford Township) and other Michigan law makers was a dent in the line as it traveled under the St. Clair River. The vast majority of drinking water for southeast Michigan comes from that region.
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