The Kalamazoo River Oil Spill

One million gallons are estimated to have gone into the river.

Oil Spill Hits Kalamazoo River

The Kalamazoo River is the new recipient of 800,000 gallons of crude oil, resulting from an underground pipeline in the Midwest, spanning across Canada and the United States. Estimates suggest approximately 19,500 barrels surged through the river and its surrounding area as a result. The pipeline is owned by a company called Enbridge Energy Partners. Discovered on Monday morning, the leak was plugged shortly thereafter as the pipeline's operators ceased oil flow through the line.

Oil spill headed for Lake Michigan

Only about 60 miles away from Lake Michigan, the Kalamazoo River oil spill is quickly moving toward the lake. Residents are already reporting heavy fumes and oil-coated wildlife along the waterways.

Corrosion found in pipeline that fouled Kalamazoo River

Federal regulators say corrosion tests done as recently as last year found "metal loss anomalies" along the pipeline that sent thousands of gallons of oil rushing into the Kalamazoo River this week.


Just two weeks ago, the pipeline's owner notified the government it was considering replacing section of pipe rather than repairing it, regulators say.

Late Wednesday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration or PHMSA - a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation - sent Enbridge Energy Partners Ltd a corrective action order in the wake of the spill, spelling out the steps that must be taken before the pipeline is reopened.

It also ordered that the section of failed pipe be given to the National Transportation Safety Board for testing and a 20-year review of any problems along Line 6B of the 1,900-mile Lakehead System be provided.

The rest of the line also was ordered evaluated.

No cause has yet been determined for the spill. On Wednesday, the Free Press found two PHMSA reports from early this year raising concerns about aspects of the Lakehead System - one about the safety of the particular kind of pre-1970 pipe that was used at the site of a spill in North Dakota and another questioning corrosion monitoring systems along the same line, 6B, where the west Michigan spill occurred.

"Oil rig alarms turned off 'to aid sleep'"

From the Guardian.UK:

Vital warning systems on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig were switched off at the time of the explosion in order to spare workers being woken by false alarms, a federal investigation has heard.

The revelation that alarm systems on the rig at the centre of the disaster were disabled – and that key safety mechanisms had also consciously been switched off – came in testimony by a chief technician working for Transocean, the drilling company that owned the rig.

Mike Williams, who was in charge of maintaining the rig's electronic systems, was giving evidence to the federal panel in New Orleans that is investigating the cause of the disaster on 20 April, which killed 11 people.

Williams told the hearing today that no alarms went off on the day of the explosion because they had been "inhibited". Sensors monitoring conditions on the rig and in the Macondo oil well beneath it were still working, but the computer had been instructed not to trigger any alarms in case of adverse readings.

Both visual and sound alarms should have gone off in the case of sensors detecting fire or dangerous levels of combustible or toxic gases.

The evidence of deliberate dilution of the rig's safety mechanisms is likely to have wide ramifications for BP and Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling company. It switches the spotlight of blame away from BP and towards the subcontractor which took the decisions. Of the 126 crew on board the rig on 20 April, seven worked for BP and 79 for Transocean.

Williams said he discovered that the physical alarm system had been disabled a full year before the disaster. When he asked why, he said he was told that the view from even the most senior Transocean official on the rig had been that "they did not want people woken up at three o'clock in the morning due to false alarms".

Williams' testimony will raise questions about whether lives could have been saved had the alarms been properly set and the disaster mitigated.

He also revealed that a crucial safety device, designed to shut down the drill shack in the case of dangerous gas levels being detected, had been disabled, or bypassed as it is called.

When he saw that the system had been bypassed, Williams protested to a Transocean supervisor, Mark Hay, who dismissed his concerns. Hay responded: "Damn thing been in bypass for five years. Matter of fact, the entire [Transocean] fleet runs them in bypass."

In a third significant disclosure, Williams also revealed that a computer system used to monitor the drill shack was constantly freezing up, and on one occasion even produced wrong information. The system failed to indicate that a vital valve inside the blowout preventer, the device designed to shut down the well in case of problems, had been damaged.

Pressure is now likely to mount on Transocean to explain the discrepancies.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that a survey of workers carried out by Transocean shortly before the blast suggested key safety practices had not been followed.

Workers said that, while they were aware of unsafe practices on the rig, they were afraid to report mistakes for fear of reprisals.

"Large China oil spill threatens sea life, water"

[AP] BEIJING – China's largest reported oil spill emptied beaches along the Yellow Sea as its size doubled Wednesday, while cleanup efforts included straw mats and frazzled workers with little more than rubber gloves.

An official warned the spill posed a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality as China's latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China's most livable city.

One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude.

"I've been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil," said Zhong Yu with environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent the day on a boat inspecting the spill.

"The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt," she told The Associated Press by telephone.

The oil had spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at the busy northeastern port exploded, hurting oil shipments from part of China's strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. Shipments remained reduced Wednesday.

State media has said no more oil is leaking into the sea, but the total amount of oil spilled is not yet clear.

Greenpeace China released photos Wednesday of inky beaches and of straw mats about 2 square meters (21 square feet) in size scattered on the sea, meant to absorb the oil.

Fishing in the waters around Dalian has been banned through the end of August, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

At least one person died during cleanup efforts. A 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, drowned Tuesday when a wave threw him from a vessel, Xinhua reported.

Officials, oil company workers and volunteers were turning out by the hundreds to clean blackened beaches.

"We don't have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks," an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, in apparent exasperation.

"This kind of inefficiency means the oil will keep coming to shore. ... This stretch of oil is really difficult to clean up in the short term."

But 40 oil-skimming boats and about 800 fishing boats were also deployed to clean up the spill, and Xinhua said more than 15 kilometers (9 miles) of oil barriers had been set up to keep the slick from spreading.

China Central Television earlier reported an estimate of 1,500 tons of oil has spilled. That would amount roughly to 400,000 gallons (1,500,000 liters) — as compared with 94 million to 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill off the U.S. coast.

The cause of the explosion that started the spill was still not clear. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp., Asia's biggest oil and gas producer by volume.