The following press release arrived in my inbox this afternoon, credited to Tony Iallonardo of the National Wildlife Federation. It begins:
Tomorrow (July 10th) the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is likely to release the results of its investigation into the cause of the 2010 Enbridge tar sands oil spill into the Kalamazoo River watershed.
The release of this report has been much anticipated because this was one of the largest tar sands oil spill in history, which impacted almost 40 miles of waterway. Enbridge is still cleaning up that mess as we approach the 2 year anniversary of the spill.
The release of this report has been much anticipated because this was one of the largest tar sands oil spill in history, which impacted almost 40 miles of waterway. Enbridge is still cleaning up that mess as we approach the 2 year anniversary of the spill.
So far, so normal. Advocacy groups regularly let reporters know they’d be happy to have one of their people provide quotes if they are covering a particular story. What amused was the release’s final two paragraphs:
NWF will say Enbridge has not shown they have the capacity to safely operate their tar sands pipelines. We will ask for the following: Enbridge should shut down Line 6B and run an integrity inspection on all pipelines. Second, no pipelines should be constructed to transport tar sands oil until the National Academy of Sciences has concluded a study on how transportation of diluted bitumen impacts current pipelines. Lastly, any pipeline operator transporting this product should be required to develop alternative response plans, which take into account the unique nature of the toxic heavy bitumen.
Please let me know if you have questions.
Please let me know if you have questions.
The shorter version: So, yeah, we know the federal agency won’t release the report until tomorrow, but here is what we are going to say regards of what that report says.
It is not exactly a secret that advocacy groups will argue a particular position regardless of what the latest news is. They usually aren’t quite so direct about it though.
