Laws Not Adequately Protecting Great Lakes from Spills

May 16, 2012

Nearly two years after one of the worst oil spills in Midwest history, a legal study by the National Wildlife Federation, USA, reveals that laws governing oil pipelines do not adequately protect the Great Lakes and its communities from oil pollution and that states have not passed their own laws to fill in the gaps.

Pipeline spills in the Midwest are not an anomaly: they occur frequently and result in significant damage. The Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin contain 26,972 miles of hazardous liquid pipelines, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. There were 277 hazardous liquid pipeline accidents in the region between 2007 and 2011, which spilled more than 3.8 million gallons of these liquids into the environment, resulting in more than USD893 million dollars of property damage, according to the agency.

Read more