Raise the Hammer
By Maggie Hughes
Published October 31, 2012
John Bolenbaugh is an ex-Enbridge employee, fired for not wanting to cover up the shoddy clean-up of an oil spill along the Kalamazoo River in 2010. Enbridge gave the orders to hide the oil under streams, parks and in the woods. Bolenbaugh's videos show the three main ways that Enbridge instructs its employees to hide spills.
This is not new, as the pipeline company has had over 600 leaks and spills at the time of this posting. What is different in Kalamazoo was the size of the spill, and the fact that it flowed into the river as well as many creeks and bog areas, ending up in Lake Michigan.
Some of the nearby residents became ill and suffered neurological disorders for the first time in their lives, simply from being forced to inhale the fumes.
The spill was not addressed immediately, largely because the local fire department and similar emergency service people did not know where the pipeline was.
The citizens were not warned. The leak was not reported to them. Enbridge engaged in many dangerous and dishonest practices. It was only John Bolenbaugh and independent journalists who told the true story. I thank him for his work under very stressful situations.
By KLO (anonymous)
Posted October 31, 2012 at 13:12:28
It is interesting to me how little research you did and that you excepted Mr. Bolenbaugh at his word without taking Enbridge's side of the story. If you had done some research you find the this "whistle blower" was fired for misconduct prior to "blowing the whistle" on Enbridge. This would make you headline somewhat outrageuos. A look into the claims by Mr Bolenbaugh about hiding this spill by looking at information supplied by Enbridge to the EPA would show that sample results taken from areas selected by the EPA including the depositional areas that Mr. Bolenbaugh uses for his examples are below back ground samples taken both upstream and downstream of the release. Additionally the areas that Mr. Bolenbaugh chooses to focus on are areas of significant ecological value. The techniques that he would like to see used in these areas may remove any residual impacts in the area but the damage that these invasive techniques would cause to the ecology of the area would bestroy thier ecological suitablitity for the next 20 years. A look back at past significant spills of heavy oils such as the Exxon release will show that in areas where these highly invasive techniques were utilized there is little to no recovery of the ecology to date versus areas where minimially invasive techniques were used that show full or near to full recovery.
Taking the word of a disgruntled ex employee with a documented questionable backgound and no significant exepertise without doing any research on the subject is highly questionable and severly skewed journalism.
By J (anonymous)
Posted October 31, 2012 at 14:30:33
in reply to Comment 82481
Well said. It is becoming the norm where extremists get a free ride from journalists because shock value sells. I would like to see more unbiased journalism, and more consumers of information demand this kind of unbiased journalism, because frankly I'm getting sick of hearing only one side of the story.
By accesslaw (registered)
Posted November 01, 2012 at 05:18:25
in reply to Comment 82481
By accesslaw (registered)
Posted November 01, 2012 at 05:20:15
in reply to Comment 82488
By Conrad66 (registered)
Posted November 01, 2012 at 10:02:19
By TKO (anonymous)
Posted November 01, 2012 at 22:19:22
Bolenbaugh never worked for Enbridge. He worked for SET Environmental. He's lying when he says he worked for Enbridge. He's also a registered sex offender--he went to jail for having sex with two underage girls. He's hardly an oil spill clean up expert, he's an ex-con who has a sordid history, a hard time with telling the truth and a hard time getting and keeping a job.
By Undustrial (registered) - website
Posted November 07, 2012 at 01:00:05
By Undustrial (registered) - website
Posted November 08, 2012 at 17:46:13
By Ryan (registered) - website
Posted November 09, 2012 at 09:14:02
in reply to Comment 82686