Enbridge denies employees knew of million-gallon oil spill into Kalamazoo River

[mike r]

http://michiganmessenger.com/40352/enbridge-denies-employees-knew-of-oil-spill-sunday-night

Enbridge denies employees knew of oil spill Sunday night
By Todd A. Heywood 7/31/10

BATTLE CREEK, MICH. — Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel denied statements from Calhoun county area elected officials that an Enbridge Energy employee was present on Sunday night, a full 10 hours before Enbridge officials admit to being aware of the leak.

Michigan Messenger first reported the information, which is allegedly contained in a fire incident report with the Marshall Township Fire Department. Township Clerk Cynthia Sink said the report was under seal by order the National Transportation Safety Board as part of its investigation of the cause of the oil spill.

Daniel, responding to Michigan Messenger on the issue, posited a new theory. “I wasn’t going to go into this amount of detail, but one of the things that we have been able to look into is there was a report of an Enbridge truck in the area. But we have confirmed that it was a truck with very similar markings and color to Enbridge,” Daniel said. The truck, however, was not an Enbridge vehicle, he said.

Enbridge continues to vehemently deny any employee was aware of the spill in Calhoun county until 9:30 CST, or 10:30 our time. That is when Enbridge says it received its first report of the leak as well as saw instrument readings which showed a change in pressure.

Enbridge owns and operates a pipeline that runs through southern lower Michigan from Indiana up to Sarnia Ontario Canada. The pipe burst sometime Sunday night or Monday morning, spewing over a million gallons of crude oil into Tamadge Creek and into the Kalamazoo River. The spill is being called the worst oil spill involving a waterway in the Midwest. Enbridge contends the leak began on Monday morning, but 9-1-1 logs show calls began coming into the center at 9:30 p.m. Sunday night complaining about a strong odor of gas in Marshall.