Posts by Todd A. Heywood

BATTLE CREEK — Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency say they cannot confirm “absolutely” that oil has stopped flowing out of a stretch of pipe which burst Sunday night or Monday morning.
“There is no way they can absolutely be confirmed there is no more oil coming from the break until all the oil around the [...]

MARSHALL TWP — Two county elected officials say an employee of Enbridge Energy was on site on Sunday night, July 25, after the first reports of a million gallon oil spill came into Calhoun county’s 9-1-1 system.
Calhoun County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Rae and Marshall Township Clerk Cynthia Sink confirm that Marshall Township [...]

EPA officials told the Michigan Messenger this morning that no chemical dispersants will be used on the oil spill in Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan.
The use of dispersants in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has caused a great deal of controversy, as critics say their [...]

BATTLE CREEK — As the cleanup of more than 1 million gallons of oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River continues, there are a lot of words swirling around which are not in the everyday vocabulary. Michigan Messenger presents this visual glossary to help you understand the terminology.

MARSHALL — The Calhoun County Health Department has issued a recommendation that people around the area of the Kalamazoo River oil spill evacuate the area. County health officials say they have detected “higher than acceptable levels of benzene” in air quality studies.
The area affected by the recommendation are directly north and northwest of the [...]

COMSTOCK/GALESBURG, MICH.– Faced with disputed claims from the EPA, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and aides to Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan Messenger has been visiting sites along the Kalamazoo River between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, particularly around Morrow Lake, to determine exactly how far to the west the oil has reached to this point.
Morrow Lake is a [...]

State Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland) has introduced legislation in the State Senate to lift a cap on costs oil companies have to pay for clean ups associated with their pipelines.
Anderson told Jack Ebling on WILS 1320 AM radio Wednesday that right now, state law caps the damages a company is liable for at $15 [...]

Wednesday night the Environmental Protection Agency revised its estimate on the amount of oil that has flowed into the Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River in Calhoun County. The EPA now says more that one million gallons of crude oil was released in the incident.
That number is significantly higher than the estimate Enbridge Energy [...]

In a press briefing Wednesday night, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced that oil from the Enbridge pipeline spill has spread past Morrow Lake and its dam. The lake was identified by officials as a location they expected to stop the oil spill’s progress down the Kalamazoo River. The oil is now entering a region of the [...]

BATTLE CREEK — During a press conference Wednesday morning, Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel told the assembled media that the company plans to have the pipeline which was the source of what many say was the largest oil spill in the history of the Midwest running again “in days.”
“It will be days before the pipeline is [...]