M arshall is a west Michigan city laid out in the s, home to only about seven thousand people, one of the few places where one still smells the perfume of burning wood on every corner. Beyond it, much of the land is rural. The Kalamazoo River is wide here, about fifteen feet, snaking its way in wide turns westward to Lake Michigan.
Running under and through the town is an Enbridge Energy oil pipeline formerly called Line 6B. At the time of its failure in Marshall, Line 6B carried twelve million gallons of oil per day. On that July day, technicians deactivated the pipe for a planned ten-hour shutdown for maintenance. The failed pipe was wrapped in one layer of polyethylene tape, meant to prevent corrosion from soil loads, moisture level fluctuations, and electrical charges.
But at the point of rupture, the tape had disbonded, causing corrosion and cracks underneath that ultimately led to a rupture. It took the energy company seventeen hours to notice the spill. As the pipeline discharged, more than twenty thousand barrels—, gallons—of oil flowed directly into Talmadge Creek, a tributary that carried the oil into the Kalamazoo River.
Marshall residents began to notice a smell creeping through the town. More than three hours after the rupture, a resident made the first call about the odor of gas, but dispatched firefighters were unable to locate the source.
By eleven the following morning, the odor was strong enough to give another caller a headache. Finally, an unrelated utility worker spotted oil pouring into the creek and notified Enbridge around a. The company closed the pipe at the site of the rupture.
Before the spill, there had been warnings about the state of the 6B pipeline. However, other parts of the line did. The year of the spill, the line had more than three hundred identified anomalies requiring repair.
In fact, Enbridge had requested a two-year extension on repairs from the Department of Transportation just ten days before the spill. In , fewer than forty of the three hundred defects flagged for repair were corrected within a half-year deadline.
Nessel has sued Enbridge in hopes of voiding the tunnel agreement. Meanwhile, Enbridge is awaiting permits that would allow it to start tunnel construction. Company officials said they still intend to begin pumping petroleum through the tunnel in In the meantime, they say they are applying lessons learned from the Line 6B spill to make sure Line 5 is safe.
Company protocol now enables staff to shut off a pipeline quicker when safety concerns arise. Any shutdown triggers an in-person inspection before petroleum shipments can resume. The company has amped up its inspection program, hired more emergency response staff, and taken pains to make sure local public officials are aware of Enbridge pipelines running through their community. Enbridge officials tout the new pipeline safety practices as the best in the industry.
Those recent discoveries have also sparked a power struggle between state officials and Enbridge. Enbridge contends it has already made such a commitment, rendering a new agreement unnecessary. The rebuff prompted harsh words from Whitmer. Along the Kalamazoo River, Cheryl Vosburg is watching the Line 5 debate grow more feverish by the day, while worrying that the Line 6B disaster may be fading from public memory.
Vosburg has dedicated her career to cleaning up the Kalamazoo, formerly as the environmental programs coordinator for the city of Marshall and now as director of the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council. In the decade since the spill, her heartbreak has given way to ambivalence. She is satisfied with the cleanup and simultaneously worried about lingering environmental damage. Listen to the full episode. You make MPR News possible. Individual donations are behind the clarity in coverage from our reporters across the state, stories that connect us, and conversations that provide perspectives.
Help ensure MPR remains a resource that brings Minnesotans together. Donate today. Listen Looking back at the Grand Rapids oil spill, 30 years later. It took years to clean up after an oil pipeline burst, gushing gushed 1. Here, crews clean up along on an area river -- a week after the spill.
Share Twitter Facebook Email. Updated: March 4, p. Posted: March 3, p. Others such as Lynn and Sue Burgett fled their home on A Drive North after it was found to be one of 61 where benzene levels were determined to be too high. A front-page story in the Enquirer reports that federal investigators said there was "no evidence" Enbridge knew about the spill before reporting it July Additionally, the U.
Environmental Protection Agency reported that more than half of Enbridge's ,gallon oil spill had been removed from the water. More than 50 residents sek financial relief from Enbridge's storefront center in Battle Creek, and others contemplate suing the company at a meeting with lawyers in Marshall.
At this point, there's still confusion — and frustration — from many looking for answers from Enbridge. Twelve days after the spill, crews continue work to crawl through acres of black sludge and oil-soaked mud to get to the rupture point close to Talmadge Creek. No timeline exists for the installation of a new pipe now Line 78 , but digging continues near ground zero of the oil spill.
In a span of 10 days, health officials met with area residents, Enbridge discussed lawsuit alternatives and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration officials nixed a restart plan by Enbridge. That number was to include emergency cleanup, long-term environmental protection, lost revenue, repair and inspection of the pipe and damage claims by local residents.
The impact of the oil spill is expected to be far-reaching. Officials fear crude oil has seeped into the ground and could affect the river environment and the local economy for years — and the river is far from opening to the public. Despite the improving look of the Kalamazoo River on the surface, officials are concerned about what's below the surface and along the river banks.
Paul Makoski, environmental health manager for the Calhoun County Public Health Department, said there's only a "slight risk" the oil will contaminate the groundwater — and it's dependent on how thoroughly crews are able to remove subsurface oil and oil in the marshlands.
Despite cold temperatures freezing the surface of the Kalamazoo River, crews still are at work cleaning the river.
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