Enbridge to Pay $177M in Kalamazoo Oil Spill Settlement: Updated

This story has been updated.

Enbridge Energy will pay a $172 million settlement in the 2010 pipeline rupture that polluted nearly 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River under an agreement announced Wednesday between the Canadian oil transport giant and the U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency.

The agreement covers the Kalamazoo catastrophe, the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history, and a smaller spill near Romeoville, IL, that took place two months, according to media reports, including The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.

The settlement, the second-largest penalty ever imposed for Clean Water Act violations, comes just days before the sixth anniversary of the devastating July 25, 2010, breach near Marshall.

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More than 1.1 million gallons of oil leaked from Enbridge’s 30-inch transmission line for more than 17 hours before the company was alerted by a third party of the environmental catastrophe that fouled Talmadge Creek and about 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River.

In a report, the National Transportation Safety Board blasted Enbridge’s response to the disaster, its “weak regulation” of pipeline integrity management programs, among other items.

Alberta-based Enbridge said in a news release that it would comment on the settlement early Wednesday afternoon.

The consent agreement also requires Enbridge to take steps to shore up the integrity of its aging Line 5, twin pipelines that run under the Straits of Mackinac that environmentalists have warned could cause a disaster many times worse than the Kalamazoo spill if they were to burst.

Enbridge must install pipeline supports, conduct a pipeline movement study, and make quarterly inspections using acoustic leak detection technology under the terms of the consent agreement.

Enbridge’s Line 3, which runs from Canada through Minnesota to Duluth, near Lake Superior, will be replaced along its U.S. footprint.

Enbridge agreed to pay over the course of the four-year agreement:

• About $110 million in injunctive relief to offset the damage done by the spill and prevent further disasters.
• $61 million in penalties for the Marshall spill.
• $1 million in penalties for the Romeoville spill.
• $5 million to federal agencies to recoup their costs associated with their response to the Marshall spill.

Image: Leg bands from Michigan DNRE attached to birds from the Enbridge Kalamazoo River oil spill prior to their release. USFWSmidwest photo via Flickr / Creative Commons