You wonder when we as a country will ever learn. More importantly, when will the U.S. government and agencies associated with it learn. Well evidently the ugliness that has been the Gulf Coast spill for the past 3 months or so turned out not to be the lesson we had hoped. On Sunday July 25, yet another oil spill was occurring that threatens to terrorize more United States waters and lands. This time though, instead of being from the wicked witch of the south, this nasty spill is being conjured up in the upper reaches of the country in the north, threatening the waters of Lake Michigan and surrounding rivers.
The spill is not guaranteed to make it to Lake Michigan at this point, but is certainly not out of the realm of possibility either. From its original starting point, which is characterized as being in an underground pipe near a pump station in Marshall, Michigan, the oil has seeped 35 miles downstream, where it is so far causing havoc on the Kalamazoo River and surrounding areas. Already there have been evacuations of homes along the route for elevated levels of Benzene in the air, and there promises to be more if things are not stopped. In fact, at this point, Lake Michigan lies only 80 miles away from the oil spill.
Sadly, this is another case of a company (Enbridge Inc. of Canada) that appears to have a bit of a shaky reputation trying to run their business with less than adequate equipment and parts for the job. As well, a government agency, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PMHSA) also will seemingly be taking a hit for this accident as well. How can that be? Well it appears that PMHSA sent a letter to the company in question letting them know that the system they had in place to monitor corrosion in its pipeline was not up to US standards. No penalty or anything else was levied. Next thing you know pop goes the pipeline and oil is on the loose.
What is different in this case is that Enbridge has already capped the leak, so no more oil is getting out as was the case in the fiasco in the Gulf. However that does not stop what is already in the water supply, which estimates range from 800,000 to 1,000,000 gallons of oil. However, according to politicians of the state, there is one thing way too similar for peoples liking, and that is the response time and cover-ups they believe are being instigated by the offending company. There is conjecture that people reported the foul odor in the air caused by the spilling oil some twelve hours before Enbridge says they knew about it. Doesn't that leave them with egg; I mean oil, on their faces.
Also, even though the company has taken total responsibility and says they will see cleanup through to its fruition, Michigan's Governor, Jennifer Granholm says that what is being done is not close to what she was told by EPA officials would be needed to clean up this spill. According to her, the equipment in place will not be enough to capture all the oil that is loose, and in fact, the EPA stated that twice as many things, such as boons, would be necessary. Where have we seen these particular complaints before? You guessed it, BP was also vilified for its level of response and equipment it used to try and contain the mess. Now on the complete other side of the country, we deal with the same scenario.
What we are left here with is unanswered questions once again. Will more of our natural resources be destroyed by the carelessness of companies out for the all mighty profit and government agencies whose lack of enforcement appear to be severely lacking? How about those areas that are part of the lands that surround Lake Michigan. Will they suffer more economic hardship like those folks in the Gulf at a time when the country is in economic turmoil and cannot afford another hit? Will this company have its feet held to the flame and be forced to pay for their mistakes? The folks in this area can only hope so. However, the larger question is this: Will these two disasters be enough to spur this country to put more of an emphasis on finding alternative energy sources so we can reduce this crap? We can only hope!
Some data courtesy of : http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/22534