Where to Listen:
The largest reported oil and gas pipeline spill in state history is unfolding in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. A couple of weeks ago, Canadian oil giant Enbridge spilled more than a million gallons of liquid natural gas after it accidentally broke its own pipeline in Iron County. And right now, we have way more questions than answers.
Host:
Amy Barrilleaux
Guests:
Evan Feinauer, Clean Wisconsin Attorney
Resources for You:
Transcript:
Amy Hi there and welcome to The Defender, Wisconsin’s environmental podcast, I’m Amy Barrilleaux. The Defender is powered by Clean Wisconsin, your environmental voice since 1970. So I was not planning on putting out a new episode this week, but what’s unfolding in northern Wisconsin right now is hard to ignore. A couple of weeks ago, Canadian oil giant Enbridge spilled more than a million gallons of liquid natural gas after it accidentally broke its own pipeline in Iron County. You may have seen the aerial video taken by a concerned citizen. If not, we have a link in the show notes. It’s crazy. A pipeline valve construction site shrouded in a huge ground level cloud of toxic fog. The video was taken before Enbridge began burning off some of the contamination that remained on the site. And right now we have way more questions than answers. In this episode, I talk with Clean Wisconsin attorney Evan Feinauer about all the concerns happening in the wake of the spill. That’s right now on The Descendants. Picture this, a driverless truck crashes into a pipeline carrying a pressurized cocktail of hazardous liquid natural gas and other chemicals, and it happens in one of the most pristine natural areas of Wisconsin. The truck was an in-bridge contractor at the site of valve work on the oil company’s Line 5 pipeline two weeks later and we still don’t know the extent of the environmental and health damage that may have occurred. Joining me is Clean Wisconsin attorney Evan Feinauer who’s been leading a lawsuit to stop construction of a reroute of the pipeline across northern Wisconsin. Evan, thanks for being here.
Evan Happy to be here.
Amy So I think when we think about pipelines like Line 5, we think, okay, they’re carrying oil. It’s an oil pipeline, but this bill kind of shows us that’s not all that’s in this pipeline. So what all does this pipeline carry across Northern Wisconsin?
Evan Yeah, so these are natural gas liquids, or NGLs. So they are different than the sort of dark, heavy, gloppy oil that people might think of from past spills and other incidents. This includes stuff like propane and butane that people may be familiar with from their everyday lives. This is stuff that’s flammable. It’s normally in gas, but you can condense it down into a liquid, which is how it travels through these pipelines. Um, so this is part of what runs through line five and it’s what leaked out of this place where they had the incident. What makes it a bit different is it can volatilize into the air. So when you have the leak, you’d basically immediately have a gaseous component and then a separate liquid component at the spill site.
Amy And so people I imagine have seen this video, which I believe was taken just by a concerned resident in the area or a nearby person, but they’ve seen this sort of foggy haze hanging out over the pipeline. When you saw that image, what went through your mind?
Evan Well, the first and immediate thing is just like, you know, oh my God, I hope nobody has been killed or hurt. I mean, that stuff is not anything that anybody should be breathing. Yeah. And then you start thinking, okay, well, if that’s in the air, that means all the plants are being exposed to it, all the animals, where’s it drifting to? What does it mean for the air quality in the area and just generally, there’s the liquid component then that’s there in the ground. What is that? Nasty stuff seeping into the groundwater? Will we ever be able to get it out? How long will it be there? Is this stuff going to get transported into a waterway that then spreads it out across the landscape? Those are all the questions that immediately come to mind when you see a leak escape like that.
Amy So let’s talk just for a second about what caused this. We call it a leak or a spill, but it was really just a big breach in part of the line. Um, Enbridge, I think has kind of tried to distance itself from what happened. It was, according to Enbridge a contractor truck that… Apparently was left without an operator that careened into a valve as it was being worked on or some part of the line while the valve was being worked on and then caused this, what is apparently the largest gas and oil pipelines bill in state history. Is it fair for Enbridge to say, oh, you know, is this a kind of third party that had this responsibility?
Evan Yeah, I understand the distinction they’re trying to make. But this was an incident that occurred because of the work they were doing, regardless of who owns the truck. My understanding, and again, I just know what’s being reported, because we don’t have the full report from the pipeline safety folks yet. But it seems like this was the truck that caused the breach, it was a truck that was there at Enbridge’s behest and direction to facilitate construction of this valve site. So this is exactly the kind of thing that everybody knows can happen when you build this kind of infrastructure. And indeed, you know, human error and collision are two types, two categories of risks for pipelines that are factored into analysis of pipeline safety. Those are kind of two different buckets of things that can go wrong. And so this is, you now, everybody knows that these are the kinds of things that can happen.
Amy Were you surprised, you know, this, this happened in, uh, I think it was August 25th, um, this over a million gallons of liquid natural gas spilled in Northern Wisconsin. And then it was kind of like, oh, no big deal. Like we didn’t hear a lot about it. If we’re considering how, how large of a spill this was, uh it was kinda like, well most of that just kind of went in the air except for what we’re going to burn off. And then. And then there was some quiet, that there wasn’t any kind of big outrage or let’s get some more questions answered or what’s going on, especially I think from the media and even in some cases, regulators here in Wisconsin.
Evan Yeah, I’m hoping we’re going to start seeing some more follow up, you know, stories and pieces and interviews. I think part of it has been that the leak happened and as far as I know, it’s still the case that DNR staff, our state environmental regulators haven’t been to the site because it’s not safe for them to be there, I guess. Obviously, we want and need our environmental regulators to be out there, rather than just being a private company, Enbridge, and the federal pipeline safety regulators on site, because this isn’t just a pipeline safety issue, it’s an environmental issue. And I think what that’s left us is a little bit in the dark as to what exactly is happening, because we just have these Enbridge statements of like, this is what we did today, this is happening. This is what our initial monitoring shows, that kind of thing. And I think it’ll take a little time for us to know more. But having said all that, I think that this is a big deal that it should be warranting more attention for a range of reasons. One, just the leak itself, and also because this is not the only incident that’s happened with construction of this reroute and the associated valves so far.
Amy So you’re talking about what are known as frack-outs, right? There have been a number of these kind of like this drilling fluid material, bentonite clay that’s used for horizontal drilling under the ground in some places kind of gets it loose and makes it into places where it shouldn’t be.
Evan Yeah, and there’s been a number of those that have been reported, just like with this leak, you know, some of those are still ongoing in terms of, you know, how bad was it? What are the impacts? What’s the remediation look like? Well, how is that process going to play out? But we know that it happened. And we don’t see any reason why they won’t continue to happen as construction continues. And just to emphasize that this leak that we And this is, again, precisely the kind of. Problem and the kind of environmental cost that comes with building this infrastructure. I mean, this is one of the buckets of problems that construction causes that we’ve been talking about for years and that has been part of our lawsuit.
Amy I know we’ve been saying, yes, that building this pipeline reroute puts northern Wisconsin at risk. Do you think when the DNR issued these permits, they fully considered these risks? Thought about, OK, is there going to be a million gallons of liquid natural gas and other toxic chemicals spilled? You know, are we willing to put that risk on Northern Wisconsinites?
Evan Yeah, I mean, DNR obviously DNR and its staff knew that a spill could happen and that was something that needed to be looked at. We’ve disputed, again for years, the adequacy of that consideration because from where we stand, what basically happened was they knew this was a potential issue and we’re talking about an oil and gas pipeline so a leak in a spill is a real thing you have to contemplate. And the department try to do some assessments. To figure out that the risk and severity of a spill would be. But at the end of the day, what it says in the permit is basically just the risk of a spill is what Emerge’s paid consultant said it was. I mean, they just quote the number right in the pyramid. So from our point of view, they overly relied on assertions by those consultants who I cross-examined at the hearing, and I don’t think he was terribly credible, and we established he had some errors in his own methodology. The numbers just didn’t add up. And yet that’s the number that appears in the permit. And so that was, we thought that DNR was overly willing to accept that number, that very low risk. And now we’re sitting here and there’s been a leak, not on the reroute itself, but at one of these valve sites. And it’s frustrating because this is entirely foreseeable.
Amy Do you think that in this moment, as we are seeing still one of these huge leaks continue to play out, that the DNR is doing enough right now, or being transparent enough, or even has any idea what’s going on?
Evan Yeah, I don’t know. It’s a little hard to know. You know, as recently as this past Friday, I saw the DNR secretary say that they still weren’t at the site. But if I understand correctly, their position is, is not out of lack of willingness. But do they have the authority to be there because of the safety of the site and maybe PHMSA, the federal pipeline safety regulators are saying you guys need to hold off. I don t know exactly what the situation is. But what I would say is, I think the public should expect that as soon as possible that the environmental folks that are responsible for safeguarding Wisconsin’s environment get in there and assess the damage and that are very transparent about what it is and what they’re gonna require of Enbridge to make this right. And we need to see that going forward. I mean, it’s gonna, unfortunately it’s going to be a longer process because they gotta deal with the immediate risk that’s posed by this leak. I think there’s still some liquid gas there. I don’t know that I would want to be standing there breathing the air. So there is that safety component. But at the end of the day, we need answers to be transparent and communicated to the public and to be very comprehensive about what happened here and what the environmental harm has been.
Amy Because there are all kinds of liquid chemicals and components of everything, the oil and natural gas and all of that that’s in a pipeline that we don’t even know what is in this spill exactly. I mean, there are a lot of different chemicals that could be on the ground.
Evan Yeah, I mean, I certainly don’t know what we’re all talking about. I know there’s been concerns about benzene in the air in the local area, which is, you know, a byproduct of these, uh, NGLs, but it’s true is that there’s all kinds of different things that could theoretically be in the air or in the soil or in groundwater, some of which will move, some of it will stick in the instance of the soil. And so that’s all going to have to be accounted for. And that’s going to be complicated and I hope it’s happening as soon as possible.
Amy Let’s, let’s talk about where this is for a minute because, you know, when you think about Northern Wisconsin, you, know, Wisconsin’s Northwoods, and I know, like, as someone who’s not originally from Wisconsin, I didn’t have a real concept of, like what are the Northwood? But I know from, from talking to you and being here for a while, people really treasure the Northwood. Oh, the North woods. We’re going up fishing. We’re gone up hiking. We’re gonna canoeing. You know, it’s like it’s people go there and. And or live there and really appreciate this kind of treasured area. So I mean, is that basically where we’re talking about where this bill happened?
Evan Yeah, I mean, this was in a pretty rural area, which means up there that you’re talking about a lot of places nearby that are pretty special environmental places that haven’t been affected by human development, like the southern part of Wisconsin has. I mean it’s, it’s from a human safety perspective, had there been more people around, this could have been a lot worse. So I guess in that sense, it’s good that it was in a rural area. But the flip side of that, then, means is that there’s really nice plants and animals and habitat and water, high quality water resources that are nearby. And that’s what people should have in their mind’s eye when they’re thinking about where this happened is that this is up in Northern Wisconsin, where it’s, these are the wild places that people want to keep the way they have been for hundreds of years and that’s, that’s exactly where this.
Amy And at this point, we have no idea how much, if anything, and what exactly might be in the groundwater in the area. We don’t know if there’s a conduit from the groundwater in the areas to different water bodies or Lake Superior. I mean, we’re kind of in the dark about how that kind of pristine natural area is being impacted right now. Is that right?
Evan Yeah, and part of that is just it’ll take some time to develop that information and Bridges represented that it started the process of collecting groundwater. Its statements have been a little vague, but that they’ve started the the process of having groundwater monitoring plans. I haven’t seen any results of that. I don’t know where they’re monitoring or in how many places or what they’re monitoring for. And again, that’s another place where I hope DNR is being very demanding in in terms of what they expect Enbridge to do. But we’ll just have to wait and see and hope that the damage is contained and that we can get really transparent information so the public has confidence that we know what has happened and that it all comes together in a pretty timely manner.
Amy I think something that makes it kind of surprising that the DNR did kind of use the risk assessment from Enbridge’s consultants is that Enbridge doesn’t have the best track record in terms of either oil spills in Wisconsin and reporting them or even construction harms. So what, uh, I’ve encountered a couple of lists, I guess, of Enbridge issues in Wisconsin. What do we know about how the company operates here?
Evan Well, there have been a number of issues. They’re also in Wisconsin, the Jefferson County spill that they had, and everybody’s familiar with the big Kalamazoo spill they had over across the border over in Michigan. But this is what the oil and gas industry is. You can’t have these pipelines that are moving barrels and barrels of gas and oil every day and not have this be part of the cost of having and operating those lines, that these incidents will happen. And so Enbridge can say, you know, we have the best safety plan and we hire only the best people and look how much we follow all the best recommendations for how to operate. But at the end of the day, we’re talking about people going out and doing things and mistakes are gonna happen, equipment will fail, people will make mistakes, there’ll be oversights, you know weird contacts will arise and this is part of it. And you know it’s part of it because it doesn’t happen once or twice, this is now, you know, multiple incidents over the years across these pipelines. It just is part of what happens. And it’s one of the costs that we’ve been saying for years that our state shouldn’t be bearing so that oil can get pulled up out of the ground in Canada, sent across Northern Wisconsin and then sent back to Canada again. It just comes with the territory when you’re talking about moving oil and gas across these landscapes.
Amy I know one of the lines I heard a lot from Enbridge and folks kind of testifying during our court cases on behalf of Enbridge was, well, this is the safest way to move oil and gas across Wisconsin. This is the safe way. And I found that really interesting because, you know, you’re comparing it to tanker trucks and bomb trains. You know, there’s not a lot of great ways to move what are very dangerous chemicals. Do you think that, you know, I guess oil pipelines have the advantage of being kind of out of sight, out of mind, like you don’t really see it so you don t really understand the risk it poses?
Evan Yeah, I mean, in Wisconsin, at least, they’re literally buried in the ground, so you don’t see them. And I also think that because these pipelines often traverse rural areas, that if people don’t see that anybody’s been killed or injured because of a rupture or explosion or something, that nothing bad’s happened. But that’s not the case. I mean, in these places, there’s huge amounts of soil that are contaminated. There’s habitat that’s impaired. There’s all kinds of nasty things that can happen. And I do think it’s easy just to kind of move on and say, oh, it’s safe, it safe and not. Note that these are the, again, these are things that do happen when you’re operating pipelines.
Amy Real quick, we talked a little bit about the case that is the lawsuit to try to stop the reroute of the Line 5 pipeline. And I know there’s been a whole lot going on with that over the last few months. In a big picture sense, where would you say that that legal case is?
Evan Well, this Friday, the 11th, we’ll be wrapping up all of our arguments on the merits in the case we filed, you know, way back, you now, it’s going to burn me, coming up on a year now, and hopefully get a decision before the end of the year from the judge on the merits of the sort of main challenge to the wetland and waterway permits that Dean are issued to Enbridge for construction of the reroute. In addition to that, there’s been this sort of… Spin-off case that’s related but separate that relates to Enbridge’s ability to cross four waterways for construction. Enbridge didn’t have the required land interests to be even eligible for these permits in the first place, which is, again, another thing we’ve been saying for years and years. And the judge agreed with us that they were likely not on solid footing with those permits so rather than waiting for the play out, Enbridge and DNR got together and they issued sort of quote unquote new approvals that to us are just the same old approvals and they put a nice new code on it to make it look like it was fancy and new and fresh, but it has the same legal defect. And so we had to file the second case. And in that case, we’ve now filed a request to stay construction at those crossings based on these like quote unquote, new approables, because they have the same underlying legal defect, which is that Enbridge isn’t eligible for them. And we’re gonna move as quickly as we can to get that request for a stay briefed and argued and hope that the court has time to push pause on those crossings before they already, you know, go and cross and impact those waterways in spite not having the right eligibility.
Amy Because Enbridge is building this reroute, right? As we speak, this is a real push from the company to get that completed so that by the time a decision is reached, everything will kind of be done. It’ll be a lot harder to, then the damage will be done, and they’ll be like, oh, well, it happened. Is that basically it?
Evan Yeah, and Enbridge’s counsel and court have been very clear both in filings and statements they’ve made orally at hearings that they’re in a real hurry to do this, that they really want to do this as fast as possible. And that time is of the essence component of this is why we’ve multiple times gone to the court and asked for pause on things so that we can get a ruling on the merits of our legal challenge and not just let facts on the ground outpace the case. Um, of course, Enbridge’s position is they need to build a reroute because they’re worried that the existing line, you know, is going to be shut down because they are in trespass on the reservation. But that’s entirely a problem of Enbridge his own making by being in trespassed across the reservation and so the fact of the matter is, is that that’s a timetable that’s pretty artificial in our mind. And I don’t know, but I really hope that, you now, that part of these incidents we’re seeing aren’t about. Rushing to get construction done because that would be an especially sad state of affairs that we’re having these environmental impacts, you know, due to haste.
Amy There’s so much at stake that I think, it’s surprising to me that this bill hasn’t gotten more attention, but I think you’re right, we’re going to start hearing more and more about it and kind of bring to light things that are going up in some very important parts of the state. So, Clean Wisconsin attorney, Evan Feinauer, thank you so much for taking a second, it’s sort of like breaking news type thing, to talk with me, I really appreciate it.
Evan Yeah, of course.
Amy And thank you for listening to The Defender. For more information about Line 5 and video of the spill, check the show notes or log on to cleanwisconsin.org/podcast. I’m Amy Barrilleaux, talk to you later.
