MARSHALL, MICHIGAN--(Marketwire - Aug. 2, 2010) -
Excerpt from Joint News Conference, 3 p.m. Eastern Time, August 2, 2010
Marshall, Michigan.
Patrick Daniel, President & CEO, Enbridge Inc.
My remarks are going to be very brief today because I want to ensure that we provide lots of time to answer your questions. We're continuing to make very good progress on the cleanup. We are now actively cleaning oil from the river banks, not just the river. As I mentioned in all the prior press conferences, we continually appreciate the efforts of all of the other responders in this clean-up effort. We will thoroughly clean-up the spill. We will restore this river to the state it was in before the accident.
Regarding our forward work plan, as referenced in the prior call with EPA and others - we are resubmitting it today as required by 5 pm.
We have been working cooperatively with the EPA in preparing the revised plan. We have clarified deficiencies with them over the last 48 hours. We have made a number of modifications as they have requested. If there are any remaining deficiencies after the plan is submitted, we will modify that plan, and its commitments, until they are satisfied. So I assure you will meet all the requirements on the EPA.
I said yesterday that we will pay all legitimate claims by members of the community as caused by the spill. We are reaching out directly in as many ways as we can to as many people as possible that have been affected by the spill. And that is through direct family and individual contact.
Yesterday, Steve Wuori met with a group of residents, for example, who live in the affected area. I will be doing the same in a series of community meetings over the next several of days. Other Enbridge people have gone door to door in the affected area, talking with residents at their homes. Our intent is to continue to meet their needs and to address their concerns. We really want to keep an open dialogue with all residents of this and any impacted community.
We also are setting up a community office in Battle Creek. It will be in a storefront location - very accessible. Very visible and very easily reached. And additional details on the storefront will be out this week. Our claims staff will be in the office. The office will be open long after the cleanup is complete. We know we will have ongoing questions from residents and we will be there to answer them and address any issues that need to be resolved. I said yesterday that we have been operating in this community since 1969, and we are going to continue to be here a long time and into the future.
With that very brief introduction, I'd ask Steve Wuori to provide a little more detail on how the cleanup is going and then we will open it up to questions.
Steve Wuori, Executive Vice President, Liquids Pipelines, Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
I will provide a little more detail particularly on the washing of the riverbanks now that we've moved into the clean up phase as opposed to the containment phase.
We are actively using a number of techniques to wash oil from the riverbanks. We are initially doing that from boats to the full extent possible to minimize shoreline disturbance. And as we wash the oil from the banks any sheen or debris that comes out from that will be contained by absorbent booms and absorbent pads that we will have in abundance close by.
The clean-up plan approved for today is a more active effort in the sections of the river above the Ceresco Dam. The two areas we are concentrating on today are the confluence of the Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. And also the area, now this afternoon, just upstream of the damn itself.
I don't have an update today on recovered oil volumes. We are in the process of drawing oil off of the storage, or drawing water, off of the storage tanks that we have in this area as the oil is being hauled way.
And this will be the decanting of the water will help us determine exactly how much oil is left. But we have collected a lot of water and so it is time to start drawing that water off and deposing of it properly.
That will increase our accuracy with regard to how much oil has been recovered. And also most of the oil recovery now is all coming from the spill site itself. We are recovering very little oil anymore off of the river as it has now gone down mostly to sheen.
Pat mentioned community meetings. I was at the Ceresco Community Association meeting last evening. There were many good questions there. The meeting was very calm and friendly. I was born in Michigan and have relatives in the area and look forward to more community meetings and the opportunity to talk with people and answer their questions. In keeping with that, we will have an information tents outside the EPA community meeting this evening where Enbridge reps will be present to talk with people and answer any questions they may have.
Enbridge has launched a website to provide updates and further information about the Company's response to the leak on the 6B pipeline near Marshall, Michigan. The URL for the website is response.enbridgeus.com.
For more information please contact:
Enbridge Energy Partners, L.P.
Toll-free Media Line: (888) 992-0997
or
Investor Relations
Vern Yu
(403) 231-3946