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Straight Talk

By James Hettinger
Senior Advisor, Battle Creek Unlimited
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Lake Michigan has, so far, dodged a bullet. An 840,000-gallon oil spill into the Kalamazoo River, a major tributary of the Great Lake, threatened the lake and the millions of residents who depend upon the lake. It is hard to think about this, let alone the extreme sadness I feel for the river where I swam, fished, canoed and even trapped muskrat as a boy. It will be a long time before children living in the vicinity of the damaged river can experience the river the way I did.

Enbridge, the owner of the ruptured pipeline, appears to have been paying attention to the woeful experiences of BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite gaudy demonization rituals regularly conducted by opportunistic politicians and seedy lawyers, Enbridge has given me every reason to believe that they have fully accepted responsibility for this accident and they appear determined to make things right.

And, if there is a silver lining to this heavy cloud, consider this: Since the spill began, hotels and motels in Calhoun County have been running at a 77-percent occupancy rate, the restaurants are crowded and almost all available office space in downtown Battle Creek has been leased.

There are Enbridge personnel, cleanup specialists, lawyers, housing specialists, water quality engineers, lawyers and many other specialists tied to spill cleanups. Yes, and there are more lawyers — smiles upon their eager faces that would put the butcher’s dog to shame. But more on the legal profession and disaster recovery in a subsequent column.

There have been other downsides as well. If you could walk by the community center established by Enbridge, you will see every form of scam artist on earth. People have been taken out of the building in handcuffs, while others have cheered their payouts by promising big parties and other extravagances. The Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo vice squads can take the rest of the year off. Just as road kill draws vultures, maggots and flies, so disasters like this with a money stream draw a whole assortment of two legged parasites. Special shame on the disgraceful people who party away their settlements instead of preparing themselves for the future.

Lots of people have attended the various community meetings. Despite their occasional rants at Enbridge officials and “these oil companies,” there were few bicycles and many SUVs in the parking lots where the meetings were held.

In exasperation, some have demanded that the pipeline be permanently closed. We could do that, but an already congested I-94 would add several thousand tanker trucks a day. It could get real interesting on slippery roads in January with tanker trucks and school buses.

As tragic as the accident has been, it is nonetheless likely to happen again. Pipelines crisscross the state. Our failure to reinvest in infrastructure has allowed it to age and deteriorate. All of this seems like an opportunity to dramatically sharpen our competencies in environmental cleanup technologies.

With pipelines crossing waterways in Great Lakes states, with the age of this infrastructure advancing, it seems like yesterday was the time to start testing technologies that can contain spills and isolate them to a limited area. It seems like yesterday was the time to start research and development on the latest technologies designed to rescue the environment from the trauma we have seen in the Gulf and on the Kalamazoo River. It does not take getting hit in the head by an Asian carp to know that cleanup technologies are now in greater demand than ever before, especially if we are to protect our Great Lakes.

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