Opinion: Line 5 dispute reveals Canada still has not learned the key lesson
Author of the article: Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Jun 07, 2021 • 5 days ago •
Author of the article: Calgary Herald
Publishing date: Jun 07, 2021 • 5 days ago •
A sign at the confluence of Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River warns residents of Marshall, Mich. On July 26, 2010, hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil from a ruptured pipeline operated by Enbridge Inc. spilled into the Kalamazoo. The current debate over Line 5 goes back to this disaster, says columnist Gerry Kruk. Postmedia file
Michigan’s demand that Enbridge close its 68-year-old oil pipeline (Line 5) across the Straits of Mackinac joining lakes Michigan and Huron did not come out of nowhere. It is essentially the fifth “wave” of opposition to Canadian oil pipelines that suddenly erupted in 2010.
The first four cases, of course, were TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, then Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, followed by TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline and Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain Expansion pipeline.
In the case of Line 5, as in each of these earlier four cases, the opposition initially emerged in local communities along the pipeline and tanker routes which were concerned about what they judged to be the unacceptable risk of disastrous oil spills into cherished regional water bodies. Again, in all five cases, the localized opposition was later joined by national-scale climate-change activists.
The present Michigan Line 5 confrontation vividly illustrates that Canadian corporate and government authorities have still not learned — or perhaps refuse to acknowledge — the key lesson inherent in all of these pipeline controversies. This pivotal lesson is that there tends to be a very powerful and costly “blowback” — reputationally, politically and economically — when organizations responsible for major accidents are judged by impacted publics as having egregiously failed to diligently prevent or reassuringly respond to that preventable risk event.
The reflexive response by Canadian authorities to each wave of pipeline opposition has repeatedly consisted of essentially the same allegations. It is claimed the opposition is the cynical product of well-organized, media-savvy and often U.S.-funded environmental and climate-change extremists intent on destroying Canada’s oilsands industry. This “blockadia” movement is said to be lubricated by self-serving ambitious politicians and public ignorance of the economic benefits and ethical environmental performance of Canada’s oil industry.
These assertions are problematical and self-destructive in their lack of candid self-reflection. They also seek to deflect blame from both the actual trigger for the initial outbreak of opposition in 2010 and from the resulting risk concerns, distrust and outrage that were the driving forces sustaining the opposition over the past decade.
These corporate character issues, combined with the aggravating effect of the unreassuring longer-term response to Kalamazoo by Enbridge and Canadian authorities, constitute an alarming track record that inevitably undermines public confidence. The outrage and “blowback” tend to be even stronger when the negligent organizations are foreign entities invited into and relied upon by the people of the host jurisdiction, in this case, Michigan. Such a corporate reputation of unreliability and untrustworthiness has now come home to roost for Enbridge and Canada in Michigan. This is the case given its responsibility for a pipeline, whether transporting conventional oil or dilbit, that is now understandably viewed as an unacceptable risk to the uniquely important Great Lakes.
Trust is absolutely pivotal to both corporate or government success. Distrust, like trust, is earned, through observed behaviour and manifested attitudes and values. Enbridge and Canada, having claimed like Michigan that safety is their top priority, should put aside their current adversarial legal and public relations strategies and instead engage in sustained interest-based rather than positional negotiations with Michigan. In this way, they can respectfully discuss the issues, cultivate compromises and collaboratively resolve the question of what “acceptable” pipeline risk at the Straits of Mackinac could look like. In this way, Canada could also help to restore its vital relationship with America.
Gerry Kruk has extensive experience as a consultant for stakeholder relations and risk communications for petroleum and pipeline companies operating in Western and Arctic Canada.
Michigan’s demand that Enbridge close its 68-year-old oil pipeline (Line 5) across the Straits of Mackinac joining lakes Michigan and Huron did not come out of nowhere. It is essentially the fifth “wave” of opposition to Canadian oil pipelines that suddenly erupted in 2010.
The first four cases, of course, were TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, then Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, followed by TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline and Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain Expansion pipeline.
In the case of Line 5, as in each of these earlier four cases, the opposition initially emerged in local communities along the pipeline and tanker routes which were concerned about what they judged to be the unacceptable risk of disastrous oil spills into cherished regional water bodies. Again, in all five cases, the localized opposition was later joined by national-scale climate-change activists.
The present Michigan Line 5 confrontation vividly illustrates that Canadian corporate and government authorities have still not learned — or perhaps refuse to acknowledge — the key lesson inherent in all of these pipeline controversies. This pivotal lesson is that there tends to be a very powerful and costly “blowback” — reputationally, politically and economically — when organizations responsible for major accidents are judged by impacted publics as having egregiously failed to diligently prevent or reassuringly respond to that preventable risk event.
The reflexive response by Canadian authorities to each wave of pipeline opposition has repeatedly consisted of essentially the same allegations. It is claimed the opposition is the cynical product of well-organized, media-savvy and often U.S.-funded environmental and climate-change extremists intent on destroying Canada’s oilsands industry. This “blockadia” movement is said to be lubricated by self-serving ambitious politicians and public ignorance of the economic benefits and ethical environmental performance of Canada’s oil industry.
These assertions are problematical and self-destructive in their lack of candid self-reflection. They also seek to deflect blame from both the actual trigger for the initial outbreak of opposition in 2010 and from the resulting risk concerns, distrust and outrage that were the driving forces sustaining the opposition over the past decade.
The “trigger” was the catastrophic diluted bitumen pipeline spill from Enbridge’s Line 6B into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in July 2010. Kalamazoo unleashed a new and frightening risk concern: that spills into waterways of the growing volumes of (sinkable) diluted bitumen were much more damaging and costly than traditional spills of (floatable) conventional light oil.
This “risk concern” escalated into enduring “distrust” and “outrage” as investigative reports revealed the shocking degree of Enbridge’s pre-accident complacency and carelessness, regulatory non-compliance, secrecy, inadequate training and incompetence, emergency response failures and, generally, its anemic safety culture.
Trust is absolutely pivotal to both corporate or government success. Distrust, like trust, is earned, through observed behaviour and manifested attitudes and values. Enbridge and Canada, having claimed like Michigan that safety is their top priority, should put aside their current adversarial legal and public relations strategies and instead engage in sustained interest-based rather than positional negotiations with Michigan. In this way, they can respectfully discuss the issues, cultivate compromises and collaboratively resolve the question of what “acceptable” pipeline risk at the Straits of Mackinac could look like. In this way, Canada could also help to restore its vital relationship with America.
Gerry Kruk has extensive experience as a consultant for stakeholder relations and risk communications for petroleum and pipeline companies operating in Western and Arctic Canada.
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