Keith Matheny

Detroit Free Press

A petroleum transport company may soon receive approval to ship heavy crude oil from Marysville into Canada via a 98-year-old pipeline under the St. Clair River — without public hearings or an environmental assessment.

The U.S. State Department, which has jurisdiction on pipelines that cross the American border, moved the permit consideration through the Federal Register — a massive clearinghouse for federal regulations, proposed rules, public notices and executive orders — starting in mid-January. A 30-day public comment period on the proposal by Houston-based Plains LPG Services expired on Feb. 24 with virtually no comments.

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The two pipelines in question, in St. Clair County, are 8 inches in diameter and were built in 1918, according to State Department documents. They were fitted with 5-inch diameter liners at some unspecified point in time.

Michigan environmental groups learned of the permit consideration on the day the comment period ended. Ed McArdle, chairman of the nonprofit Sierra Club's Southeast Michigan group, requested that the State Department extend the comment period and give the public more opportunity to consider and weigh in on the proposal. He's still waiting for a response.

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"This is mind-blowing, really," he said, incredulously. "We thought Line 5 was bad, but 1918?! Crude oil?!"

Line 5 refers to the 63-year-old, twin underwater pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac operated by Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge, that are used to transport natural gas liquids and light crude oil. Those pipelines have generated huge controversy, with many concerned what a potential spill could mean to the Great Lakes. Gov. Rick Snyder has convened a group to study the pipeline and possible alternatives, and several communities have passed resolutions calling for its shutdown.

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A spill of heavy crude oil in the St. Clair River would be similarly catastrophic, McArdle said.

"The main drinking water intake for Detroit is at the north end of Belle Isle, right downstream from that," he said. "Water intakes for other communities on both the U.S. and Canadian sides are all just downstream as well."

The State Department, in 2014, approved permits for Plains LPG to operate six pipelines under the St. Clair River and one line under the Detroit River. The permits were needed after Plains LPG acquired the pipelines from another company, Dome Petroleum. The State Department's initial approval was for the shipment of "light liquid hydrocarbons," similar to what's allowed in Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac.

But Plains LPG officials later provided the State Department with copies of correspondence between the department and Dome from 1971, in which the company stated it planned to use two of the pipelines under the St. Clair River to transport "crude and other liquid hydrocarbons." The State Department responded and acknowledged the company's plans.

"The 1918 Presidential Permit had authorized the transport of crude oil," the State Department states in its summary on the current permit request.

Under federal rules, if a company receiving a transfer of an existing permit intends to operate "essentially unchanged from that previously permitted," the State Department "does not intend to conduct an environmental review of the application." The State Department makes an exception if information "is brought to its attention" that indicates the permit transfer "potentially would have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment."

But because the 30-day public comment period has passed with virtually no comments, how the department could get that information is uncertain.

Messages left with the State Department were not returned Friday. And messages left with Plains LPG's Houston headquarters, and a company station in Alto in Kent County, also were not returned.

St. Clair Township resident Venessa Davis expressed shock and outrage at the proposal, and how it has proceeded so quietly.

"That's what astonishes us," she said. "We knew Enbridge's pipelines were old, and we had concerns about the Straits pipeline after what happened in Kalamazoo." She referred to a 2010 spill from an Enbridge oil transmission line near Marshall that severely impacted Talmadge Creek and 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River, necessitating a more than 4-year, $1-billion cleanup.

"But then to find out they want to use these existing, old pipelines is just unthinkable," Davis said.

"The government appears to just rubber-stamp it. They take the company's word at face value, and don't check any facts. For somebody to give this kind of carte blanche permit to a company is really kind of insane."

Marysville is a major energy hub area along the St. Clair River, where pipelines carrying natural gas, oil and industrial chemicals converge and often continue on into nearby Sarnia, Ontario, and its so-called "Chemical Valley," a 15-square-mile area packed with 40% of Canada's petrochemical industry.

David Barber, a Marysville City Council member and retired fire inspector for the city, said the number of pipelines traversing the St. Clair River in just the city "numbers in the teens."

He expressed concern about the age of the Plains LPG pipelines proposed for crude oil shipment.

"My question would be whether the companies can reline the pipes that are that old," he said, adding that the year when the pipelines were given an additional liner "would be nice to know."

An oil spill scare has already occurred on the St. Clair River: In September 2010, as the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — or PHMSA, the federal pipeline regulator — was castigating Enbridge for the Marshall oil spill that July, the agency's corrective action order to the oil transporter also referenced a "deformation anomaly under the St. Clair River" in Line 6B, the same line that had failed in Marshall.

Enbridge, that same month, responded to PHMSA with its plan for "St. Clair River dent remediation."

And Plains LPG has a recent history with an oil spill from its pipelines: On May 19, 2015, the company's Line 901, a 24-inch diameter, crude oil pipeline, failed near Refugio Beach in Santa Barbara County, Calif., spilling 2,400 to 3,400 barrels of oil. Preliminary findings from PHMSA's investigation found that the spill went undetected for about 21/2 hours, and the functionality of a leak-detection system at the company's pipeline control center was "turned off" as the spill happened for reasons investigators don't yet know. The preliminary cause for the leak was pipeline corrosion.

McArdle wants to know more about the St. Clair River pipeline.

"Is the pipeline resting on the river bottom? Is it under the river bed? It's an area with a very strong, fast current."

There may yet be a chance for further review. In the Plains LPG permit request documents, the State Department states they are also "soliciting the views of concerned federal agencies." It's possible the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the International Joint Commission, a joint U.S.-Canada agency that resolves Great Lakes and border water conflicts, could take an interest.

Davis noted the difficulty in finding out who is in charge on oil- and gas-related activity in her hub community.

"It's very disconnected, and I wonder if they keep it disconnected to get things passed," she said.

"Is there going to be an environmental review? New regulations applied? If not, that's ludicrous for a 100-year-old pipeline. This is our fresh water. We have 44 million people on both sides of the Great Lakes who rely on this water. Who is going to say, 'No, this is our water, we're going to protect it?'"

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com. Follow on Twitter @keithmatheny.