Governor Granholm, EPA, and Senator Stabenow talk about clean up efforts
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - The Governor, EPA Administrator, and Senator Stabenow all talked about the clean up efforts.
They say even though crews sucked gallons of the crude from the river already, it'll take months to finish.
The pipe was installed in 1969. Now it's the focus of an intense investigation to find out why it failed.
"The pipe will be exposed by the end of today. I can't speak to how long the investigators will require, but their first move will be to inspect it in place," said Steve Wuori Enbridge Executive VP of Liquids and Pipeline
NTSB'S investigator in charge says they had hoped to start that inspection of the pipe two days ago but water and oil have slowed the process.
"It's very wet out there, you're dealing with very large heavy equipment and I think the logistics of getting stuff in there, I've actually seen back hoe that has sunken in off the mat and that delayed efforts," said Matt Nicholson NTSB Investigator.
In addition to getting at the pipe, the NTSB is also establishing a timeline on what happened with the leak and the response time from Enbridge. The company has said it wasn't aware of the leak until Monday, but some say 911 call records show people reported the problem Sunday.
"That is part of our investigation, yes, we have the 911 records and we are chasing down all leads that are contained in those records," said Nicholson.
The NTSB has five investigators on the scene in Marshall and one in Edmonton at the Enbridge Control Center. Nicholson says once they remove the pipe, which could be about 40 feet in length, they will likely take it back to their lab in Washington for further examination.
The Governor took a helicopter tour of the leak site and Morrow Lake, where Michigan State Police reported seeing a sheen before. The Governor says it was gone today and may have evaporated.
"Because it was a warm day yesterday, we didn't see a sheen on the lake, so I can say I was very upset a couple days ago not just because of that but what appeared to me to be a very ineffective response," said Governor Granholm.
While the EPA said there were no confirmed reports of oil getting into the lake or beyond, the Governor did indicate that sheen is different.
"I think it's important to make the distinction, the sheen is really a leading indicator that oil could be coming, but it's not necessarily fully there yet," said Governor Granholm.
The Governor also said she was encouraged by clean up efforts and progress has been made, but there is concern that rain tonight and tomorrow could spread the oil.
