U.S. cited oil firm for poor monitoring of Michigan pipe

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. - The company responsible for a massive oil spill here was warned in January by federal regulators about insufficient monitoring of corrosion on the pipeline that federal officials say leaked about 1 million gallons of oil into a major waterway this week.

The pipeline's owner, Enbridge Energy Partners, received several citations from federal regulators in recent years before the warning in January. Company officials said they routinely had tested the pipeline for corrosion.

"There was annual maintenance on 6B this year as with all of our pipelines," Patrick Daniel, the Canadian firm's chief executive, said yesterday, referring to the pipeline that leaked oil into the Kalamazoo River.

Steve Wuori, an Enbridge executive vice president, said the firm was doing maintenance all along the pipeline, but the section at the leak site was not scheduled for replacement.

Federal officials said the estimated amount of oil that spilled into the river starting Monday was more than a million gallons, significantly more than the firm's estimate of about 800,000 gallons. The leak was in a 30-inch pipeline that carries millions of gallons of oil each day from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ont. It was built in 1969.

Mr. Daniel said the firm used internal inspection tools to detect the levels of corrosion or cracking on all pipelines. No repairs or replacements have been made to the part of the pipe where the spill took place, he said.

State officials have expressed grave concern over the environmental impact if the spill reaches Lake Michigan, more than 60 miles away. Officials for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is leading the response efforts, said Thursday that they were confident that they could stop that from happening.

Ralph Dollhopf, a federal coordinator for the agency, said workers far had stopped the oil from entering Morrow Lake, about 30 miles downstream from the site of the spill. "We do not anticipate that Lake Michigan is at risk," he said at a news conference.

Enbridge officials said yesterday that hundreds of workers and contractors were working on the spill with more than 12,000 feet of containment and absorption boom, 14 skimmers, 43 vacuum trucks and tanker trucks, excavators, and other vehicles.

Officials said it could take months to clean up the spill, which was believed to be among the largest ever in the Midwest. Hundreds of response workers continued to lay boom, skim the water, and conduct flyovers yesterday to assess the damage.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday she was worried that the oil might reach Lake Michigan if containment efforts were not strengthened. Some state officials dispute the claim that oil has not reached Morrow Lake, saying they saw oil sheen during a flyover.

The leak's cause is under investigation. The pipeline is still closed and cannot be reopened without approval from U.S. regulators.

Local officials said yesterday that they would evacuate 30 more families from homes near the spill site because of health risks and they asked residents of about 100 homes a to use bottled water as a precautionary measure while local water sources are tested.

Mr. Daniel, Enbridge's chief executive, apologized again yesterday, saying the company took full responsibility for the spill. "We will spend whatever it takes to clean it up," he told reporters.

Enbridge has experienced leaks, an explosion, and dozens of regulatory violations throughout the Great Lakes region and elsewhere.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Dave Jenkins, of Marshall, holds onto a muskrat earlier this week as a group attempts to clean the animal in Marshall, Mich. Enlarge

The company responsible for a massive oil spill here was warned in January by federal regulators about insufficient monitoring of corrosion on the pipeline that federal officials say leaked about 1 million gallons of oil into a major waterway this week.