Oil spills, leaks, and explosions…unfortunately, the Gulf’s not alone
by Fresh EnergyBy Elena Velkov, media relations coordinator, Fresh Energy
Just as BP capped its oil well, and the public began to breathe a sigh of relief, another oil spill occurred last week. Calgary energy company Enbridge is responsible for a leaked pipeline that has spilled more than one million gallons of crude oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, according to new estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency. The pipeline normally carries about 8 million gallons of crude oil daily from Indiana to Ontario. Enbridge says it has contained the spill and is making progress with clean-up efforts, but Governor Jennifer Granholm calls the efforts “wholly inadequate.”
If this has happened in the waterways of our neighbors to the east, one can’t help but wonder whether something similar has happened right here in Minnesota. Well, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has addressed this very thought. It released a report, “Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution, and Profit,” that cites all of the spills, fires and deaths from the oil and gas industry. The report includes a state-by-state breakdown. It found Texas, Louisiana, and California have had the most incidents.
But Minnesota did, in fact, have four incidents of its own, in the last 10 years. They include the following:
-July 2002 – Enbridge pipeline rupture near Cohasset
-March 2004 – Flint Hills Resources refinery fire in Rosemount
-November 2007 – Enbridge pipeline blast near Clearbrook, two people killed
-April 2010 – Enbridge pipeline leak on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation
It’s pretty unsettling. So how can we turn this around? Referring back to a past blog post by Michael Noble, we need increased fuel efficiency in cars, better transit and urban planning, electric vehicles and charging stations, and renewable energy transmission. To quote NWF, “You never hear of a wind farm disaster or a solar farm catastrophe.”
