The EPA’s determination that more cleanup is needed was based on the findings of a year-long survey of nearly 6,000 locations along the 40 miles of river contaminated when pipeline 6B ruptured in July 2010. Enbridge has until next week to request a conference with the EPA to discuss the additional work and 30 days to submit written comments.
Steve Hamilton, a Michigan State University professor who was among the experts who worked on the study, said the recommendation for dredging was driven by concern that during flooding the pools of oil could break loose and recontaminate parts of the river that have already been cleaned—or flow downriver into areas that were never touched by the gooey oil. 
“We will never get all of the oil out [of the river]. It’s impossible,” Hamilton said. “The challenge is to determine when do you get to a point of diminishing returns where the eradication is too environmentally destructive to warrant the removal.”
A spokesman for the EPA said the agency would not have any comment beyond the information contained in its proposed order and the letter it sent to Enbridge.
The EPA acknowledged in the proposed order that Enbridge had conducted substantial cleanup since the pipeline ruptured, but “despite these response actions, oil remains in the Kalamazoo River.”
Enbridge did not respond to requests for comment for this story. But in an Aug. 24 letter to the EPA, the company said it did not believe that more dredging—especially in the area near the Ceresco Dam—was necessary.
“Enbridge’s position is that we have reached a point of diminishing returns where further invasive activities would do more harm than good,” Richard Adams, Enbridge’s vice president of field operation in the United States, said in the letter.
“In fact, we strongly believe that such action solely for the purpose of aesthetics would both negatively impact the riverine environment and create a significant disturbance and inconvenience to local landowners and other river users.”
The company also disputed the EPA’s concern that oil is still pooling in the river, especially near the Ceresco Dam.
“[T]he most significant evidence of submerged oil has been sheen which, when collected, has amounted to a volume of less than 1 gallon of product in total during 2012,” Adams wrote, referring to the area around the dam.
Deb Miller, who lives near the dam in the community of Ceresco said she sees rainbow sheens of oil floating on the surface when she walks along the river near the carpet store she and her husband own. Recently she ran a garden rake along the river’s bottom and said that marble-sized globs of oil popped to the surface, accompanied by the sour whiff of petroleum.
“It’s insane how much oil is still here,” said Miller, who has testified before Congress about the spill’s impact on her life.
Please read on at:
http://greatlakesecho.org/2012/10/13/epa-worried-dilbit-still-a-threat-to-kalamazoo-river-more-than-2-years-after-spill/
