That’s right, another oil spill. Monday, July 26th, over 800,000 gallons (25,000+ barrels) of oil from an Enbridge pipeline spilled into a creek that flows into the Kalamazoo River.
It appears that the spill was detected and shut off much faster than the Salt Lake City Oil Spill in June, but spewed nearly twice as much greasy scum as the Chinese Oil Spill just over a week ago. It pales in comparison to the disaster in the Gulf, but is more than enough contamination for Michigan.
Enbridge, I should mention, is proposing a new tar sands pipeline to bring Canadian tar to Asian refineries. Because we need more pipelines and tankers… Thankfully the Enbridge pipeline is facing massive opposition.
So that makes 4 major oil spills in 4 months. Let’s hope that we learn to break this pattern.
[Correction: I initially said the Enbridge tar sands pipeline would bring crude to American refineries. The pipeline is primarily intended to transport the crude oil to British Columbia, where it will be shipped to Asian markets.]
To see somthing like this is devistating. I went down to the river this evening and i started to cry. could not beleive all of the oil that was in the water, not to mention the geese that were covered in oil!
We shouldn’t just “hope” these oil spills stop. We should demand they do. There are other ways to get energy that won’t pollute the air or water–wind and solar energy. In fact, Google, one of the biggest companies in the world just announced that they’re going to purchase wind power for the next two decades to provide clean energy to its data centers. If companies like Google are getting on the clean energy band wagon, then I think maybe the rest of us can too.
http://www.renewablepowernews.com/archives/1604
I just LOVE how oil is being spilled on American soil, which is coming from Canada and being sold to Asia. That’s kind of like your neighbor letting their dog take a big stinky dump on your front yard. Except instead of poo, its toxic oil. WTF.
OK, so after some research, the oil is coming from Griffith, Indiana, and going up to Ontario. So not only is their dog pooping on our lawn, but they’re also digging up our flowers and selling them. Not cool.