Ruptured Michigan Pipeline to Restart, Now New and Double the Capacity
InsideClimate News 2014-04-10
Summary:
By David Hasemyer
There will be a lot on the line in a few weeks when Enbridge Inc. hits the start button on its new 6B oil pipeline across southern Michigan.
The company is banking on the line to more than double the amount of oil it pumps from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.
Residents along the pipeline's 285-mile path also have a stake in the project. They're counting on it to be safer than the old 6B that it replaces—the one that spilled more than a million gallons of oil from Canada's tar sands region into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010.
"We have to live with the pipeline and all of the what-ifs," said David Gallagher, who lives in the town of Ceresco. "We hope everything is going to be everything they say it will be, but we just don't know."
The new line runs just 14 feet from Gallagher's house, so close that Enbridge had to take special precautions to make sure his foundation wasn't damaged during construction. Gallagher captured dramatic video of huge pieces of equipment rumbling by his living room windows.