Company doubling workforce on cleanup effort following oil spill into major Michigan river

Company doubling workforce on Mich. river spill

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — A company operating a pipeline that dumped more than 800,000 gallons of oil into a southern Michigan river said Wednesday that it is doubling its work force on the containment and cleanup effort.

Officials with Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc. made the announcement during an update on the spill, which coated birds and fish as it poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River, one of the state’s major waterways.

“We’ve made significant progress,” company CEO Patrick D. Daniel said. “But we still have a long way to go in terms of cleanup.”

The company had about 200 employees and contractors working on the spill on Tuesday. The Environmental Protection Agency also is bringing in additional contractors, and there was no update on a possible cause, cost or length of cleanup.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm toured the area by helicopter Tuesday night and said she wasn’t satisfied with the response to the spill. The leak in the 30-inch pipeline, which was built in 1969 and carries about 8 million gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario, was detected early Monday.

Granholm declared a state of disaster in Calhoun County and potentially affected areas along the river, which eventually bisects the city of Kalamazoo and meanders to Saugatuck, where it empties into Lake Michigan. Officials don’t believe oil will spread past a dam at Morrow Lake, upstream of Kalamazoo.

“We don’t want to clean up in the lake,” said Ralph Dollhopf, an on-scene coordinator of the Environmental Protection Agency. “We want to hold it before it gets to the lake.”

Enbridge said Wednesday it still estimated that about 819,000 gallons of oil spilled into Talmadge Creek. But state officials were told during a company briefing Tuesday that an estimated 877,000 gallons spilled, said Mary Dettloff, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Mich., said Enbridge was slow in alerting federal authorities of the spill. But the company said in response that the perceived delay was due to a misunderstanding of the timing of when the leak was discovered and regulations about reporting such spills.

Enbridge said the spill was detected around 10:30 a.m. EDT Monday and confirmed around 11:30 a.m. Schauer released documents saying the incident was not reported to the National Response Center until about 1:30 p.m. There were calls to area fire departments late Sunday complaining about the “bad smell of natural gas,” the documents said.

Enbridge said it was required to determine the spill’s possible volume before calling and first tried around 1 p.m., but was put on hold and delayed. The company said it then called back around 1:30 p.m. and made the report. Initially, there were reports the spill was detected about 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Calhoun County officials said they weren’t concerned about the municipal water systems supplying Marshall and Battle Creek. Groundwater testing was expected to begin Wednesday on other water supplies closer to the river. Health officials expect that water in drinking wells are protected with lining, but testing is expected to continue for in both the short term and long term.

As of late Tuesday, oil was reported in at least 16 miles of the Kalamazoo River downstream of the spill. Company officials said the spill appeared to be contained and oil wouldn’t likely drift much more downstream. There was no update Wednesday on its spread during the news conference with the company and the EPA.

Enbridge crews and contractors are using oil skimmers and absorbent booms to minimize its environmental impact.

The river already faced major pollution issues. An 80-mile segment of the river and five miles of a tributary, Portage Creek, were placed on the federal Superfund list of high-priority hazardous waste sites in 1990. The Kalamazoo site also includes four landfills and several defunct paper mills.

Associated Press Writer David Runk in Detroit contributed to this report.