Enbridge Oil Spill Disaster May Help Sink Other Tar Sand Pipeline Proposals

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper

Opponents of plans by Canada’s Harper government and its corporate masters to build the Keystone pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to Texas and the Northern Gateway pipeline from the same hell hole of a place to the Pacific coast in British Columbia now have another powerful argument in their favour, courtesy of Enbridge Inc.

An aireal shot of the awful mess a leaking Enbridge oil pipeline made of the waters of Michiigan. The Calgary-based oil company is expected to pay $800 million or more in an attempt to clean this filth up, although some experts wonder if the ecosystem will ever fully recover in our lifetime.

In case you missed the July 10 nightly news broadcasts on CBC and numerous American channels, the Calgary, Alberta-based petroleum firm was blasted in a report prepared by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board for its negligence in a major oil pipeline leak in Michigan two years ago. And it speaks to exactly the kind of concerns raised by environmental groups that have been written off as fear-mongers and enemies of Canadian interests by Harper and company over their opposition to the Keystone and Northern Gateway pipeline.

The Enbridge pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River watershed and its wetlands occurred two years ago this July and has gone down on record as one of the worst oil spills on the North American continent.  The U.S. report lambasts Enbridge for reacting to initial reports of the spill two slowly, but most of all for not dealing with information it was privy to for at least five years that the pipeline was corroded and cracked – suggesting that this corporation had chosen to put profits before safety.

What is particularly disgusting and what should be of concern to more Canadians than seem to care now is that Harper and his tar sands party used its omnibus budget bill this spring to ram through legislation that weakens environmental regulations and reviews to make approvals of oil pipelines and related dirty oil operations easier to obtain.

In a statement following the release of the U.S. report, Enbridge said; “Enbridge believes that at the time of the accident, it met or exceeded all applicable regulatory and industry standards for its operations.”

If that is true, God help us and God help any fish habitat that the Harper bunch, under its amendments to Canada’s Fisheries Act, does not deem to be worth protecting unless the fish are of some immediate commercial value. In one of the most stinging reports on the Enbridge spill and the findings in the U.S. report, Rachel Maddow, host of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC said of the Enbridge statement; ‘If this isn’t an endorsement for stronger environmental regulations, what is?’

I am sorry to keep repeating myself, but we Canadians should be embarrassment, if not horrified, to have a federal government that cares so little about protecting the life-sustaining resources of this – the only planet in this universe we have to live on – for present and future generations.

You would think that Harper and those members of his caucus who have children and grandchildren growing up in this world would at least give a damn about their future, wouldn’t you?

For Rachel Maddow’s piece on the Enbridge pipeline disaster, you can click on the following link if you don’t mind working your way through a 15 second commercial ahead of it. Note also that Maddow, unlike most of the wimps in the mainstream media in Canada has not rolled over and agreed to call the tar sands the “oil sands,” just because spin doctors and other flaks working for dirty oil in Alberta said so. Now here is the link 

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/report-finds-oil-company-failures-enabled-disastrous-spill/17ydtgkpk .

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