"You go home to Alberta, correct me if I'm wrong, am I welcome to come there anytime where the air is pristine and the water is great? You said you wanted to come fish in our river? . Why don't (how 'bout) you eat the fish? -- resident to Enbridge CEO
Hosted by Congressman Mark Schauer (D-MI), a public meeting on the Enbridge oil spill was held on Aug. 26th in Marshall, Michigan. For 2.5 hours, the public had an opportunity to voice their concerns to officials. They weren't just upset at Enbridge, it appeared as if they were upset at everyone: politicians, EPA, the US Department of Transport, and publc health groups took the brunt of the criticism. One of the officials made a comment that went something like this, "I love Marshall, I'd love to move here". To which, a person sitting near me said... 'well, my yard has oil, you can buy my house."
And although I have an interesting sound bite of a person talking to Enbrige's CEO, Patrick Daniel, I feel like I should offer a 'tip of the hat' to the CEO. Not every CEO would take the time and listen for 2.5 hours to the criticsm and anger from citizens. They'd pass it off to their investor relations group, or their marketing department, or their directors. Nope, this CEO listened. From my perspective, and as I talked to him myself... I felt he... well... cared. He was able to take the heat, keep calm, listen and perhaps more importantly... he seemed sincere. Now I'm not here to defend Enbridge on the spill, but in this particular instance, it was nice that he was there. And it was nice that he listened. The most aggravating thing of any public official (company, institution, city)... is the inability to listen and to demonize those who complain. But thank you, Enbridge, I felt you listened, and I think others could learn to as well.
The other standout character in the crowd, was the host, Congressman Mark Schauer. It's absolutely nice that he put this meeting together. At times I think everyone is skeptical of politicians and some will always be skeptical, and in a healthy democratic country, I think that's a good thing. But, he came across as sincere as well, and he listened to everyone, and gave everyone the chance to be heard and ask questions. He too, listened. At the conference, I found out that he's introducing the Corporate Liability and Emergency Accident Notification Act (CLEAN). It's an act that would shorten the time that a company has to report a spill to the National Response Center, and create a searchable internet database of reported incidents with gas or liquid pipelines. Very cool. But, if I was to add a suggestion to that? Perhaps you can speed up the time it takes to notify the appropriate agencies, but what about notifying the public of spills that happen? Does it apply to just pipelines? What about spills that occur in other places that effect the riverways? In theory, it sounds like a corporation could have a spill, notify the government, and it could be kept quiet? I hope that's not right? And does the act just apply to corporations? What about institutions, government buildings, and other buildings that might not be 'corporate'? I'm not endorsing Schauer, but he did a nice job, I wish him the best with the CLEAN act, it sounds like a great idea and it was refreshing to see someone else concerned with our rivers.
And that got me thinking. I was listening to the complaints and one person pointed out that 4 days after the spill, health officials came and moved them out of their house. 4 days after the spill. I thought, that since this was such a huge spill, that perhaps the notification to the public would be faster. Take Ann Arbor for example, and although that petroleum cleanup took 3 days, multiple agencies responded, incident tests would list petroleum/oil/acid, and it covered the river for many hours; public officials never viewed it as a public or environmental threat (hence no health/environmental notice). Why does that matter? Because, we are to learn from the small spills and hopefully learn to notify the public in a fast manner as to what is going on. And so, 1 week later, a much bigger spill happens, but are the lessons learned on public notification? I'm not so sure. When someone in a much bigger spill takes 4 days to find out that they need to move from the stuff outside of their house, that's fairly slow public notice. Now that notice isn't necessarily the fault of Enbridge. Even in Ann Arbor, whomever spilled it (although bad), perhaps isn't responsible for telling the public? Perhaps it is the public officials who should tell us? I'm not sure, but the small mistakes that are made in the small spills should help us with the bigger spills. A while back, I had asked officials as to why the spill in Ann Arbor had so little notification to the public. One of the answers that I heard, dealt with the idea of 'crying wolf'. That you don't want to notify the public, and cause unneccessary alarm. They noted afterwards that this wasn't to scale as the one in Marshall. Well, that's obvious. In fact, I'd bet that every spill in Michigan now will be a 'minor' spill and unworthy of notifying the public, if you were to compare it to Marshall. But, perhaps, what the public needs, is a bit of education and some solutions on how we handle the public notification of big (and small) spills? Why not create a scale system? You can use my name if you like, call it the KAI Scale, and it is a very simple scale. If you have a spill that is category 1, then it is a spill that takes less than a day to clean the evident pollution. A spill in category 2, takes multiple days to clean. The spill in Ann Arbor, would fall under category 2, as that took days to clean (keep in mind that officials noted there was no evident environmental threat). A spill in category 3, would take weeks to clean. Category 4, months to clean. Category 5, years to clean. Category 6, 5+ years to clean. Category 7, decades? And so, a simple system of categories. And if you had a spill in category 1, you wouldn't need to notify the public, but anything in category 2 or higher, you would. What if you had change categories? That's not too hard... they do that all the time with tornadoes, hurricanes, and even earthquakes.
So what have I learned? Communication is absolutely necessary, and if you screw that up... it looks bad. On the big and the small spills, the public should have a right to know and hopefully some sort of legislation is passed to notify us. We care, we live here, please let us know. I heard from one official that the spill I witnessed is 'common'. From another official, I learned that it was isolated, that they only exist on the Huron River about once every 1-2 years. I don't mind getting a notice telling me that a spill had happened on the river. I'd hate the spill, but I'd appreciate the notice.
Oh, as for the quote from the citizen to the Enbridge CEO regarding Alberta. She was upset and perhaps rightfully so. But, yes, visit Alberta. It's absolutely beautiful. Talk with the tourism board of Alberta, (or even Enbridge?) perhaps they can help?
-kai
http://www.huronriverspill.com
http://response.enbridgeus.com/response/
http://www.markschauer.com/
About the Photos/video:
taken from the public forum, Aug. 26th, 2010, Marshall Middle School Auditorium on the Enbridge Line 6B Rupture
the host: Congressman Mark Schauer
video: Enbridge CEO meets with a resident
NTSB: photo of photo in presentation of technicians viewing a section of the pipe.