The Obama administration reached a $177 million settlement over a pipeline spill in 2010 that dumped almost 1 million gallons of crude oil from Canada’s tar sands into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.
Wednesday’s agreement fines Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge $62 million for the spill, while the company will pay $5 million to reimburse the Environmental Protection Agency and others for cleaning up the spill. The remaining $110 million would go to create a program to address future spills.
The Justice Department said the settlement acts as a “strong deterrent” against future spills. John Cruden, the department’s top environment attorney, said Wednesday from the banks of the Kalamazoo River that the agreement shows the government’s resolve to hold companies “accountable” for their actions.
The fine marks the second-largest in the nation’s history for an oil spill. It is only dwarfed by the near $19 billion settlement between the federal government and BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon offshore oil-rig disaster.
July marks the six-year anniversary of when Enbridge’s 6B line ruptured and spilled about 850,000 gallons of heavy crude into the river.
The spill is referred to as the worst onshore oil spill in history, causing widespread damage to the environment, while shutting down large swaths of the river to commercial and recreational use for years. The EPA, Coast Guard and the state of Michigan coordinated the clean-up effort.
The settlement agreement also covers an Enbridge spill in September 2010, when a pipeline leaked more than 6,000 barrels of crude in Romeoville, Ill.
A coalition of environmental groups called Wednesday’s settlement a “cautionary tale” and a warning against building pipelines to move oil from Canada to the United States.
“Communities being asked to allow tar sands pipelines through their borders, or tankers along their shores, need to understand the industry knows very little about how to address these spills,” said Anthony Swift, the director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Canada Project.
The most famous of the trans-border pipeline projects is the Keystone XL pipeline proposed by TransCanada to move tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf coast. President Obama rejected the project last year after seven years of review for reasons related to climate change.
“We know when it comes to tar sands pipelines, it’s not a question of if they’ll spill, but when,” said Lena Moffitt, the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. “No amount of crude oil being transported near our communities or the Great Lakes is safe, and the spill in Kalamazoo serves as a stark reminder of that reality.”
The green coalition used the settlement to underscore a report issued last week by the Canadian government that they said showed Enbridge engaged in shoddy business practices in maintaining its pipelines.
Moffitt said Enbridge should be stopped from practicing these “negligent and dirty business practices,” let alone be allowed to expand other massive pipeline projects.
“As we approach the six-year commemoration of this spill, we know the only way to guarantee the safety of our water and communities is to continue moving towards 100 percent clean and renewable energy, and leave dirty fuels where they belong — in the ground,” she said.
