An environmental group is suing the US Department of Transportation, saying it is wrongly allowing oil pipelines to operate under navigable waters without first requiring the oil companies to have mandated spill response plans approved. Neal Kagan of the National Wildlife Federation explains.
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He says an example is the Straits of Mackinac, where 60 plus year old pipelines continue to carry oil without an approved emergency spill plan. The lines are operated by Enbridge Energy Partners, which also operated an oil line that spilled nearly a million gallons of oil into a tributary leading to the Kalamazoo river in 2010. That was the largest inland oil spill in US history. Environmentalists fear the possibility of a major spill in the Straits. The oil industry says the pipeline undergoes tests on a regular basis. But Kagan says required approved plans to deal with a spill do not exist, even though they’re required under federal law. They cite the Oil Pollution Act, enacted 25 years ago after the Exxon Valdez disaster.
