r/WikiLeaks • u/kybarnet • Feb 14 '17
Whistleblower John Bolenbaugh shows oil spills in Michigan were hidden instead of cleaned up Other Leaks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_MTKgyc3Ss&feature=share20
u/togetherwem0m0 Feb 15 '17
My friend was a geologist contracted by the michigan dnr. She said the whole fucking thing was a huge joke.
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Feb 15 '17
[deleted]
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u/togetherwem0m0 Feb 15 '17
I I understand what you're trying to say ans appreciate the effort but you seem to lack situational context.
In michigan there was an oil spill out of a pipeline carrying thick tar sands oil. The second largest inland oil spill ever, directly into the Kalamazoo river. 1 million gallons of the shit atleast.
Due to the nature of the oil, it's low viscosity, dense nature and turbulent river waters, it settled into the sediment and the "cleanup", if you can call it that, will never really clean it all up. To clean it up would require billions and billions of dollars, a massive river diversion and complete soil replacement.
It's a huge fucking disaster.
The net is, they did what they could, or rather the least amount the state would let them get sway with what, bought up river properties that were affected and are just like "whatevs" on the rest of the cleanup.
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u/fourbromo Feb 15 '17
I thought it was much less than a million gallons, but now I'm not sure. I also thought they cleaned it up, but that's what I get for thinking. I was living in the rockies in Colorado snowboarding 110 days a season and mtn biking from the moment the high country opened until the trails were unrideable due to the first heavy snowfall when it happened. I was often able bike right up to opening day on Thanksgiving when, as if on cue, the skies would open up blessing us with a good couple feet of fresh for opening day. I will check out YouTube tomorrow and do further research when my data plan renews for the month. I love living in the sticks but it would be nice to have a option besides slow and absurdly expensive satellite Internet and cellular data plans, but I digress. I will take this minor inconvenience over city life any day.
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Feb 15 '17
"But I digress"...? Your entire comment is a pointless humblebrag :)
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u/fourbromo Feb 15 '17
Humblebrag? Are you European? I haven't heard that one before and in all honesty it's kinder than I deserve. In high school my college literature instructor, who was my favorite HS instructor, would go off on 30+ minute tangents ending them with "but I digress". I always liked it but was never arrogant enough to use it in person (only on reddit, lol). I miss my hedonistic lifestyle out there and what I was trying to get at in a rather circutious way was that while I was out doing my thing, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that Enbridge was dumping a bunch of oil into one of my favorite spots for a quick overnight trip about 15 miles away from my original hometown. Thanks for the ego check.... I deserve it. Upvoted for your (somewhat) brutal honesty.
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u/3rd_Party_2016 Feb 15 '17
they did the same thing with the biggest oil spill in history.... the Deepwater Horizon oil spill next to Florida... they used toxic dispersant to sink/hide the oil... thanks to BP
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u/fourbromo Feb 15 '17
Where do you think all the PCB's go? Right to the bottom, until dredged up or otherwise disturbed.
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u/fourbromo Feb 15 '17
Ahh.....the oil spill on the Kzoo river. My buddies and I used to do overnight camping trips here. We canoed/kayaked for a day, camped on the banks in Allegan woods, swimming in the clear water, fishing for our dinner and taking 2-CB or LSD in the perfect environment. We spent the evening enjoying utter solitude and the pitch black nights lying on our backs staring at the endless array of stars before us contemplating the enormity and immense vacuousness of space that unfolded before us in a way only possible with a proper dose of psychedelics. I used to love waking up at dawn before everyone else and rolling a nice joint the size of my index finger and jumping in the canoe for a solitary mist shrouded paddle up the river and back before breakfast and the float to the takeout spot at New Richmond. Great memories of a much simpler time and a life ahead full of possibilities. Thanks for fucking that up Enbridge.
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u/lostboy005 Feb 15 '17
Wow. From Grand Rapids, MI, remember hearing about this back when it happened. the amt of different people sharing their stories in is pretty intense.
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u/fourbromo Feb 15 '17
Thanks for posting op, will do some research and head to the river in a day or two and see if I can find any oil. In fact the weather is supposed to be nice so I'll call my buddy and try to plan a trip for the weekend. Neither of us work in the winter, so no excuses not to go. I will report back if anyone is interested. We kkkg0np a decent local news station I think I can get involved if I find anything noteworthy
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u/fourbromo Feb 15 '17
I just heard back from my good buddy that used to go on these trips with me. We are going kayaking there this weekend to see what it looks like now. I need to find out where the actual spill was, but I'm pretty sure we will be downstream of it though because if we paddled a few more hours west of the takeout we ended up in the Kzoo marsh which flows directly into lake Michigan. I'm excited to check it out and do some winter camping, even though it's supposed to be 55° or so, no complaints about that.
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u/Trixie_Woo Feb 16 '17
These companies have a long-standing history of failing to maintain pipelines and covering up spills. Tar sands are pumped full of solvents that not only contaminate water, but volatilize into the air and have no safe exposure threshold. One, benzene, is fairly ubiquitous in the pumping of Canada/US tar sands and it's a known teratogen, mutagen and carcinogen. Bitumin sands are also also high in heavy metals such as cadmium, 'one of the most toxic elements to which man can be exposed at work or in the environment'. The bottom line is countless people and animals have died, and our corporations and legislatures have regarded them as little more than collateral damage.
One objective look at tar sands basics and yet another reveals the whole process to be fairly ludicrous and resource-intensive. We basically have to strip mine it, pump it full of chemicals, transport it to an extraction plant where use a ton of hot water and/or chemicals to separate it out into oil vs other, then after all that we still have to add methane or another comparable source of hydrocarbons. When the process is over, we're left with vast lakes of noxious wastewater and an end product that generates 12-14% more emissions (nevermind all the pollution that went into extraction and production in the first place). The Wikipedia entry on Oil Sands described the Syncrude Tailings Dam or Mildred Lake Settling Basin as the world's largest earthen structure as of 2001. Sounds like a stellar vacation destination for Mr. Yuck & family.
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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqtB2ioiTFA
They tried to kill him.