Enbridge Energy Partners LP (NYSE: EEP) owns the pipeline that spilled more than one million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River and its tributaries in late July, leading to air and water pollution in Marshall and downstream.

Members of the Enbridge management team are going in front of a congressional hearing today, webcast live starting at 10 a.m. today transportation.house.gov, to explain what happened and to put on the record the experiences of the people who were first hit by massive oil pollution on their riverbanks and then Enbridge's cleanup efforts.

The hearing is organized by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and there is a briefing book provided to the press in advance of the hearing to show what the congressional analysis is to date of what happened. As a convenience to readers, this morning's Links column looks through the briefing book and calls out the high points.

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Background

The pipe, made in 1969 in Italy by Italsider/Siderius, was installed as part of the Lakehead System. It is part of Line 6B, which runs from a terminal at Griffith, Ind. eastward to Sarnia, Ontario. At the time of the leak, it was transporting heavy oil with an American Petroleum Gravity rating of 11, representing a mix of steam-extracted tar sands mixed with napthalene as a diluent.

Line 6B is part of a large nationwide network. Line 6A runs from Superior, Wisc. to Griffith and it is leaking at the moment near where it crosses the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which connects the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan. Line 17 runs from Stockbridge in Ingham County through Washtenaw County on its way south to Ohio; that line goes through a station known as "Freedom Junction" just to the west of the waters of Pleasant Lake. Line 5 goes under Lake Michigan near the Mackinac Bridge.

A complete, detailed, to-the-inch map is not available to the general public through the National Pipeline Mapping System (NPMS), though you can pull a map of any given county at good detail. Detailed GIS information is unpublished for security reasons.

It has not been a good summer for oil and gas pipelines. A natural gas pipeline exploded near San Bruno, Calif. last week, killing at least four people and wiping out a neighborhood. Leaks small and large on Enbridge lines have curtailed crude oil transport to refineries system-wide, which has resulted in higher prices for refined products like gasoline in areas supplied by refineries that get their feedstock from these lines.

• Gasbuddy: Enbridge rupture fueling prices higher, September 2010
• Chicago Tribune: 6A leak in Romeoville "hiccup" has impact on global markets: When word spread about the spill last week, oil speculators pounced, [Tom] Kloza said, anticipating a lengthy shutdown of a critical section of pipeline outside Chicago. This disruption, on the heels of a massive oil spill and pipe shutdown in Michigan this summer, was too enticing to pass up, he said."
• San Bruno Fire, crowdmap.com
• San Bruno Fire coverage on SFist, a San Francisco blog that did a top notch job of logging news as it came in that night and making a timeline of events from its close and concise reading of all media that night
• FOIA Friday: Oil pipeline maps and safety information, my column in July

Timeline, preliminary

As with any disaster scenario where no one knows what exactly happened until well after the fact. The first responses to the Enbridge spill show a range of confusion, uncertainty and doubt about what was going on and what to do next. Times and dates provided below are from the investigation provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) or from other sources as relevant.

At 5:58 p.m. on July 25, the NTSB reports that Enbridge experienced a low pressure alarm at the Marshall station, which is monitored at the Enbridge control room in Edmonton, Alberta. The analyst diagnosed the problem as a "column separation," or separation in oil flow, and recommended reinvestigating 10 hours later.

The first two 911 calls appeared at 9:25 p.m. and 9:41 p.m. that day on Calhoun County's computerized dispatch log files, with response from City of Marshall and Marshall Township Fire units to reports of "bad" odors, possibly natural gas.

Reading the full briefing, pages 3-6, gives you an idea of the series of catastrophes that happened subsequently in the diagnosis of the problem. Marshall area first responders are looking for a natural gas leak all over town as the area fills with fumes. Enbridge analysts, assuming that the pipeline is intact, are trying to figure out what is wrong with their pumping system to cause it to lose pressure. Everything is complicated by the realization in hindsight that the leak was not at the pump station but actually three quarters of a mile from the rupture, and that the smell is really crude oil, not natural gas.

• Michigan Messenger reads the briefing document to update its timeline
• Michigan Messenger original timeline, from August 2010

Compensation and informed consent

The Congressional investigation of the cleanup focuses on two activities post-spill as Enbridge attempts to make it right for residents of the area affected by the spill. Information release forms and consent forms provided by Enbridge to victims of the event include clauses waiving all claims for legal liabilities in exchange for compensation for hotel bills, and full disclosure of all personal medical records and medical information in exchange for compensation for medical bills.

• CBS News: Armen Keteyian reports on an investigation into the accusations against Enbridge, the Canadian energy giant responsible for this summer's oil spill in Michigan, the biggest to ever in the Midwest.

  Edward Vielmetti chases broken water mains, storm water geysers, downed power lines, ruptured gas mains, and leaking crude oil pipelines for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.