Hallmark workers at the site of an oil spill cleanup operation. (Michigan Messenger)

In July, a 30-inch oil pipeline burst in Battle Creek, Mich., near a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. The cracked pipe leaked an estimated million gallons of oil into the water, and at the time, Enbridge Energy, the Canadian company that owns the pipe, promised a complete cleanup and rigorous review of its practices. “This is our responsibility,” said Patrick Daniel, Enbridge’s chief executive officer. “This is our mess. We’re going to clean it up.”

[Environment1] But that cleanup has itself been messy. An investigation by the Michigan Messenger – a sister site of the Washington Independent, also part of the American Independent News Network – found undocumented workers laboring in unsafe conditions at the cleanup site.

An Enbridge Energy subcontractor bused in undocumented workers to labor for up to 100 hours a week, clearing debris and cleaning up oil in unsafe conditions. In response to the Messenger investigation, Enbridge fired the subcontractor, who sent the workers back to Texas. There, the undocumented workers, awaiting cash payments for their efforts, met with local authorities – and many were detained.

The scandal has gone national, with politicians expressing dismay at the conditions at the Michigan cleanup site and the labor abuses, and authorities turning their attention to the companies doing the dirty business of getting America’s waterways clean.

An Unsafe Cleanup

After the Michigan oil spill, Enbridge hired contractor Garner Environmental Services to aid in the cleanup of the river. Garner, in turn, hired Texas-based Hallmark Industrial to supply workers. Last month, Hallmark bused scores of undocumented workers to the cleanup site. Living in hotels, the workers spent 12 to 14 hours a day cleaning oil-soaked islands and shorelines along the Kalamazoo River. The workers received $800 per week in cash for their efforts.

After receiving an initial tip from a Hallmark worker who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, the Michigan Messenger visited a rally site where the workers were picked up every morning. Half of two dozen men interviewed there admitted to being undocumented workers. All of them asked not to be identified.

Photographs supplied by a whistle-blower showed clear violations of safety standards. In those photos, undocumented workers were seen covered in oil and mud getting food and water. In one photo, a worker covered in oil sits on the white cooler from which workers get their water.

Last week, after the Messenger investigation, Garner fired Hallmark. The workers were put on charter buses back to Texas.

Workers, Seeking Pay, End Up Detained

The buses stopped in Winnie, Texas, behind a bank. Reportedly, the workers on the buses were expecting cash payments from Phillip Hallmark, the head of Hallmark Industrial. Soon after, neighbors complained to the police about the buses, which were blocking a street. When sheriffs arrived, the men held in the buses ran.

Local authorities took custody of 59 of the Battle Creek workers, and about 40 men got away. Authorities say 42 of the 59 detained workers were undocumented, and they were sent to a detention facility in Houston. Legal residents were released and allowed to collect their belonging from the buses. Authorities continue to search for men who escaped during the detention process.

Chambers County Sheriff Joe LaRive spoke with the Messenger after the incident. “The [charter bus] drivers were told to drive them to this small house in our little community,” LaRive said in a phone interview. “They were to meet Mr. Hallmark once they got there. Of course, he was nowhere around when we showed up.”

LaRive indicated that law enforcement is looking for Phillip Hallmark. “I’m sure the federal authorities will be very interested in talking to him,” he says.

Enbridge Pushes Back

In the wake of the Messenger investigation, the firing of Hallmark and the detention of its workers, Enbridge Energy — the company repsonsible for the spill — has claimed no responsibility for the workers cleaning it up.

Last week, Enbridge officials said there was no official proof that the undocumented workers were in any way connected to the spill cleanup in Michigan. “This is an issue between law enforcement, Hallmark and Garner,” said Terri Larson, Enbridge spokesperson. “There is no direct connection between Enbridge and Hallmark.”

Larson stressed that contractor agreements with Enbridge contained “very strict” provisions about following all applicable state and federal laws. Asked if the Hallmark situation would impact the Garner contract, Larson said, “That’s something I cannot discuss.”

Larson referred many questions to Garner Environmental, which has consistently failed to return media inquiries.

A Broader Investigation

But the Messenger investigation is ginning up broader questions about Enbridge’s labor and safety practices. A look at the company’s record reveals a pattern of problems with worker safety including multiple worker deaths in recent years.

This summer the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Enbridge for “willful” and “serious” violations after a chemical release at a company natural gas processing plant in Texas resulted in the death of a worker. According to OSHA one employee died and another was left in critical condition on Jan. 10 when hydrogen sulfide was released as workers replaced a faulty valve on a waste heat boiler in the sulfur plant.

Federal officials say Enbridge failed to develop and implement safe work practices for workers exposed to hydrogen sulfide and failed to provide the workers with respirators — required personal protection equipment.

These violations were committed, they said “with intentional, knowing or voluntary disregard for the law’s requirements, or with plain indifference to employee safety and health.”

OSHA also cited Enbridge for failing to review current operating procedures, failing to inform contract workers of the known potential fire, explosion or toxic release hazards related their work and not requiring the use of necessary flame resistant clothing. The agency assessed $152,100 in fines for these violations.

In August, the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline Hazardous Materials Administration fined Enbridge $2.4 million for safety violations involving worker safety and failure to conduct required monitoring and maintenance.

DOT officials said that two Enbridge workers died in a crude oil explosion in Clearbrook, Minn., as they worked to make repairs on the Lakehead pipeline, and they cited Enbridge for failing to safely and adequately perform maintenance and repair activities, clear the designated work area from possible sources of ignition, and hire properly trained and qualified workers.

The agency also ordered Enbridge to revise and implement certain pipeline maintenance and repair procedures and to train and requalify its employees.

While work seems dangerous for Enbridge employees — overall, from 2004-2008, 395 injuries were recorded by Enbridge and then reported to management according to the Canadian environmental group the Polaris Institute — actual statistics are probably much higher because 80 percent of Enbridge workers are non-union and have little protection against discrimination if they report a problem.

“Officially, Enbridge provides on the job health and safety training as mandated by federal and provincial jurisdictions, and has established health and safety committees at each site,” Polaris writes. “However, the only collective agreement negotiated with the company to include specific provisions regarding proactive health and safety precautions, training and remedial action is between Enbridge Gas Distribution and the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union in Ontario.”

Many workers involved in direct cleanup of the Kalamazoo River spill were hired by subcontractors who were required only to provide on site lectures about hazardous substances and personal protection gear.

Under Michigan regulations all employers at a multi-employer job sites share responsibility for ensuring that proper safety ruled are followed, according to Michael T. Mason, safety and health manager for the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Inspectors at the Enbridge oil spill cleanup site on a daily basis, conducted “walkarounds” of the job site and asked workers if they had been trained, Mason said. “We can tell by interviews and by watching them we can tell if [workers] have been trained.” Mason acknowledged that direct observation can be difficult at a 25-mile job site such as the cleanup area along the Kalamazoo River.

Political Attention in the Wake of the Spill

And the Michigan and Texas incident has garnered the attention of politicians as well.

For one, politicians in Michigan are incensed that Enbridge did not use local workers, as the state has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country. Rep. Mark Schauer (D) sent letters to the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Secretary of Labor calling for an investigation of Enbridge, due to the Messenger investigation.

“Enbridge needs to live up to the commitment it made to our community, be a good neighbor, and start hiring qualified Michigan workers to clean up the spill,” Schauer said. “Our community repeatedly asked the EPA and Enbridge to use local labor, and the fact that Enbridge allowed one of its contractors to hire illegal immigrants is appalling.”

In an interview with the Michigan Messenger, Schauer took aim not only at the undocumented worker hiring scandal, but also the whole culture of using independent contractors to skirt the law.

“I have worked for some time on the independent contractor fraud that goes on. This is when, typically in the construction trades — and this situation on the river clean up sort of classically fits the mold — where companies will hire workers as independent contractors, as 1099 independent contractors. It’s specifically done to evade paying taxes,” Schauer said, noting independent contractor payments do not have any federal or state taxes deducted from them.

This leaves the individual responsible for those taxes. “Now that’s cheating the taxpayer, but it’s also creating an unfair advantage for these companies that are hiring workers as independent contractors rather than full employees.”

This of course is an issue tied to undocumented workers, Schauer noted. In an interview with the Messenger, Hallmark said his independent contractors were not required to fill out I-9 federal forms. Those forms verify that a person is legally eligible to work in the United States.

“In this case this seems to be a loophole in which the employer is claiming they don’t have to check the legal status of these workers and require them to complete I-9 forms,” Schauer said. “So there’s tax fraud and there’s also a violation of the law by hiring undocumented workers, it appears.”

Schauer says this unfair advantage the independent contracting process allows, combined with the lack of legal status verification, makes it hard for Michigan workers to compete.

“It’s outrageous and disgusting that our local workers — including many who have hazmat training and certifications — have been cheated out of these opportunities to do this work,” Schauer said. “This is another example of a company cutting corners ad cheating our workers out of an opportunity to support their families.”

Schauer said he has been trying “since the very start” of the spill to connect local workers with Enbridge Energy Partners. But those attempts have failed.

Schauer said the allegations of safety violations and the hiring of undocumented workers will become part of a scheduled Sept. 15 House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearings on the July 25 oil spill.

He says the oil spill was a violation of the people of Calhoun county and “it shouldn’t have happened.”

“What people are looking for is fundamental fairness and that appears to have been violated here,” he said.

Further Allegations About Hallmark

The incident is also shining a light on Phillip Hallmark and his company’s labor practices. The Texas Independent reports Hallmark is already under indictment by a Chambers County jury for insurance fraud and theft in a previous, unrelated case.

Hallmark’s attorney Joseph C. “Lum” Hawthorn said last week he had recently been in touch with his client and was aware of Hallmark’s whereabouts. When asked where Hallmark is, Hawthorn cited attorney-client privilege, saying, “That’s none of your business.”

Hawthorn said Hallmark was not currently in custody, that he was aware of.

Regarding the charge involving insurance fraud and theft, Hallmark has a court date set in Anahuac for Oct. 1. He was originally slated to appear in court Friday, Aug. 27.

Allegedly, in July 2006, Hallmark’s accomplice Joe Collins claimed to State Farm Insurance Company that Collins’ 2003 Ford F-150 was stolen from a parking lot, when Hallmark and Collins were hiding the truck, according to grand jury indictments from December 2009.

Hallmark’s wife Holly is an insurance agent in Port Arthur for Farmers Insurance Group. She is not named in court documents.

In 2004, Hallmark was fined $1,000 after pleading no contest to election code violations involving campaigns for Port of Port Arthur commissioner. Hallmark was charged with failing to report newspaper advertisements that he paid for to the candidates he supported or to authorities. Hawthorn also represented Hallmark during the 2004 case.

Hallmark is the son of former Jefferson County Commissioner Waymon Hallmark, who retired in 2009.

The Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood and Eartha Jane Meltzer, the Florida Independent’s Travis Pillow and the Texas Independent’s Patrick Brendel contributed reporting and writing to this story.

Workers at a cleanup site near the Kalamazoo River in Mich., where an oil pipeline burst.

An investigation by the Michigan Messenger, TWI’s sister publication, has found possible labor-law abuses and definite safety concerns in the cleanup of a major oil spill in the Kalamazoo River in south-central Michigan. After the Messenger story went online, the company contracting for the cleanup job fired the subcontractor.

[Environment1] A source says that Garner Environmental Services Inc., hired by Enbridge Energy after its pipeline burst on July 26, fired Hallmark Industrial, a subcontractor. Hallmark had bused in undocumented workers to toil for 12 to 14 hour days, seven days a week, for just $800 a week. The workers were helping to sop up oil and remove debris. The July pipeline break leaked more than 1 million gallons of oil into a stream that feeds into the Kalamazoo – the worst oil spill in midwest history.

Hallmark, a Texas-based firm, brought hundreds of undocumented workers to Battle Creek, Mich., for cleanup, putting them up in hotels and putting them to work cleaning oil-soaked islands and shorelines along the Kalamazoo River. The workers toil for long hours in return for cash payments, a hotel room and food while on the job sites.

After receiving an initial tip from a Hallmark worker who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, the Michigan Messenger visited the rally site on Saturday where the workers are picked up every morning. While speaking to about two dozen men there, half of them admitted to being undocumented workers. All of them asked not to be identified.

On Sunday, a busload of 150 new workers arrived by bus from Texas. The immigration status of these new workers is unknown, but the conditions under which they will work was confirmed by Hallmark workers and by multiple photographs of the worksite.

Workers are kept on the river for 12 to 14 hours a day, every day of the week. Photographs show what appear to be a number of violations of safety standards. In those photos, undocumented workers are seen covered in oil and mud while receiving food and water. In one photo, a worker covered in oil is seen sitting on the white cooler from which workers get their water.

Messenger submitted the photos, which one oil spill certified worker has identified as proof of violations of OSHA rules, to the Environmental Protection Agency and Enbridge for comment. The EPA is the lead agency in the cleanup response.

In an e-mail responding to the submitted photos, David Polish, spokesperson for the EPA wrote, “Thank you for bringing your concerns about worker safety to our attention. The United States Environmental Protection Agency takes the issue of worker health and safety very seriously. We have instructed Enbridge to investigate the circumstances surrounding these pictures. Once they complete their review, we will direct corrective actions if warranted.”

Enbridge spokesperson Terri Larson said, “We definitely identified a few things that we consider safety issues. Some were minor, some were more important.” As a result, Larson said worker safety specialists would be working to address those safety concerns promptly.

In addition, workers told Michigan Messenger that they are forced to use the bathroom in the wooded areas they are cleaning up. Portable toilets are not placed on the islands, and supervisors refuse to ferry workers to a worker rallying point where they have access to toilet facilities.

Hallmark company officials say that all the workers are legal. However, when pressed, Phil Hallmark, a supervisor on site for the company, admitted none of the workers were required to fill out I-9 or other immigration verification documents.

Hallmark said the workers merely provided their names, addresses and social security numbers. They were not required to show identification nor were they required to show verification they had completed federally mandated cleanup training. Hallmark said the workers are not submitted to the E-verify system, which determines immigration status.

“They are independent contractors, they don’t have to fill out any of that paperwork,” Hallmark said in a phone interview. “We get their name, address and social security number. We verify that everyone has one.”

He declined to discuss how those verifications were made, citing privacy concerns for the contractors. Hallmark said his workers are recruited by former contractors and word of mouth. Hallmark did admit the company pays some workers in cash “because they don’t have banks or any way to cash a check here.”

The rally point for workers is a half mile from both a Walmart and a Meijer, both of which offer paycheck cashing services.

Enbridge officials say they reviewed Hallmark’s hiring paperwork on Sunday, and “as far as they could tell it was legitimate.” Enbridge was not allowed to have copies of the W-9 documents filled out by workers or the documentation of required hazardous material training certifications, and Larson said that was because of privacy concerns for the workers.

This is not the first time Hallmark has come under scrutiny about immigration issues.

Hallmark admitted that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) visited Florida operations during the company’s cleanup work after the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion earlier in the year.

“They did an audit of our process and looked at our sign in sheets,” said Hallmark. “Nothing came of that, that I know of.”

Workers in Battle Creek say they were obligated to sign non-disclosure agreements, and provided with a card directing media to contact an 800 number if they were approached by reporters.

This morning, the contractor that hired Hallmark “made an independent decision to end that contract,” Enbridge spokesperson Larson said. “It’s fair to say – and I think it’s fair for people to make the leap – that this was because of allegations related to their business practices.”

In addition to the ending of the contract for Hallmark, Messenger’s source said Garner has issued a directive to all contractors that they are forbidden from talking to the media, and that doing so will be grounds for immediate termination. Larson said Garner had said not talking to the media was its corporate policy.

Meanwhile, some workers were left in Battle Creek with an uncertain future in the cleanup and unsure if they will receive the pay due them for their work on the Kalamazoo River on Monday – before the contract with Garner was terminated.

The Hallmark employees have boarded buses and are headed back to Texas.

Michigan politicians are calling for an investigation into the affair. Rep. Mark Schauer (D), who represents Bedford Township, today called for investigations into allegations that Hallmark Industrial hired undocumented workers in letters to the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.

For more on the spill, which one legislator called the worst in Midwest history, see this story, from our sister publication The Michigan Messenger, as well as this story on the spotty record of Enbridge Energy, the company that owns the pipeline that burst.

Plus, I’ve got a story today that looks at the agency that oversees the U.S. pipeline system.

Obama, according to his schedule, will visit a Chrysler plant in Detroit and a General Motors plant in Hamtramck, Mich.

Todd A. Heywood, at our sister-publication The Michigan Messenger, reports:

State Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland) has introduced legislation in the State Senate to lift a cap on costs oil companies have to pay for clean ups associated with their pipelines.

Anderson told Jack Ebling on WILS 1320 AM radio Wednesday that right now, state law caps the damages a company is liable for at $15 million.

But the Senate, which is dominated by Republicans, adjourned for a mid-summer break without acting on Anderson’s legislation.

“They chose to do nothing with it,” Anderson said. “They passed a resolution that called on officials from the federal government to the locals to do all they can. That’s nothing but talk.”

While the story is still developing, there are already a number of parallels between this spill in Michigan and the Gulf oil spill. The Messenger’s Ed Brayton reports that — sound familiar? — reporters are being denied access to the spill site. And Todd Heywood notes, “As in the early days of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, estimates of the amount of oil released vary, with the company claiming a lower number than the government.”

Going forward, the question is this: will a spill like this, on top of the disaster in the Gulf, push national lawmakers to act? The Michigan spill has already received attention from members of Congress and from the White House — people who aren’t happy with oil industry to begin with. Offshore drilling policies are in the process of being revamped as a result of the Gulf spill. Will policymakers now lump in measures on oil pipeline safety?

For proponents of a proposed pipeline that will bring oil from Canada to Texas, the spill could not come at a worse time. The New York Times reported yesterday that the State Department is delaying its decision on whether to permit the pipeline in order to get more input from other federal agencies. While the decision appears to have little, if anything, to do with the Michigan spill, the Environmental Protection Agency has raised significant concerns about the environmental impacts of the pipeline.

According to The New York Times article:

Among the issues highlighted, the E.P.A. questioned whether the department’s draft analysis had adequately accounted for the project’s impact on air quality and climate change, whether enough planning was in place for oil spills, and whether the effect on wetlands and birds had been thoroughly researched.

Detroit has 80,000 abandoned lots and buildings, according to the city’s planning department. Old housing projects, homes, strip malls and even high-rise buildings sit empty across much of the city. Motown has more vacant office, retail and industrial space than nearly every other big city in the country.

Like many of Detroit’s abandoned buildings, though, it’s anything but deserted. Rather, it’s a hive of activity, buzzing with scavengers, vandals, late-night revelers, arsonists, photographers and urban explorers who brave the crumbling buildings’ many hazards and create a good number of their own. The complex remains unguarded.

“Mayhem. That’s what they should call the place,” says John, a 36-year-old telephone-line repairman who spends his spare time exploring Detroit’s legendary industrial ruins. “If you decide you want to push a dump truck out of a window, this is the place to do it.”

There’s more to this. The pranksters’ playground of empty and abandoned properties represents a deep and lasting betrayal of the needs of urban America.  Some cities in the Rustbelt, hit first by the abandonment of their inner cores and then utterly devastated by foreclosures, bear scars from which they are unlikely to recover and that few seem to see. Years after the financial crisis ends, I wonder if we’ll look back at this as a time when we stood by and let some of the country’s once-great communities simply fall into disrepair and die.

In Washington, Congress ceded to the lobbying efforts of powerful interests like the National Association of Homebuilders, and passed an extension of a homebuyer’s tax credit that costs more than it delivers and puts money into the pockets of people who don’t need it. There are no lobbying groups for people who live in neighborhoods with foreclosures that even banks have abandoned because they aren’t worth the expense of taking back.

However, there are some bright spots in the overall dark landscape. As TWI’s sister site, The Michigan Messenger, pointed out last week, urban gardening has taken hold in parts of Detroit, which now boasts more than 700 urban farms within its city limits. The idea behind some of those farms is to present a healthy alternative to the liquor stores, gas stations, and convenience stores where residents often turn for high-cost groceries and fast food.

Like urban gardening, the best solutions to the abandonment crisis will come from the bottom up. But those efforts need government support to take hold and expand. In order to take off, any possible solution requires a sense of urgency among policymakers about the huge problems facing cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago — and even the outer exurbs in the boom markets of California and Arizona, where foreclosures have caused property values to sink and have left communities stuck in a downward spiral.

But there’s  been no big national push for possible solutions like land banks, which would allow local communities to seize and reuse vacant land and buildings. There’s been no national summit to talk about the tragedy of declining neighborhoods due to foreclosures. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner apparently picks up the phone and chats with his Wall Street friends several times a day. Hey, Secretary Geithner — How about making a call to a homeowner surrounded by foreclosed homes? Or maybe taking a stroll down one of those blocks in Detroit where every single home is owned by a real estate speculator? In America’s abandoned neighborhoods, they’ve been waiting to hear from you, or from anyone in Washington, for a long time. And they’re still waiting.

While the state is coming down from its second temporary shut down in two years, ever increasing unemployment and unresolved budget issues, Michigan House Republicans this week introduced legislation to amend the state constitution to define life as beginning at fertilization.

The resolution to amend the constitution was introduced by Democratic Rep. Jim Slezak of Davison and Republican Rep. Paul Scott of Grand Blanc. There were a total of 23 co-sponsors for the bill.

Rep. Bart Stupak [D-Mich.] has reconsidered earlier legislation that would have given several acres of Coast Guard property in Cheboygan [Mich.] to a Christian school free of charge after constitutional law scholars pointed out that the land transfer would violate the First Amendment separation between church and state.

After Michigan Messenger reported on this issue in August, Americans United for Separation of Church and State contacted Stupak’s office and informed them that the legislation as written was unconstitutional.

Last week, Stupak, a Democrat from Menominee, wrote to the group and told them that he was changing the bill to require that the property be sold to the school at fair market value as required by law.

The Standish City Council unanimously approved a resolution targeting President Barack Obama and federal authorities with one message: Send us your prisoners.

The city is staring down the short end of a deadline imposed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who has ordered the maximum security prison in this tiny town in Arenac County to shut down at the end of October. Officials from the town of 1,200 residents say the loss of the 350 jobs provided by the prison, as well as the sewer and water bills that were expected to keep the city’s water system functional, would economically devastate the community here.

So, the council passed a resolution on Monday telling the Obama administration to please send them prisoners, any prisoners, even the terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay, just keep the prison open. The resolution passed Monday night was originally slated for a vote weeks ago, but was tabled while city officials awaited word from the feds. No word came, but the council also used the time to expand the language to include all federal prisoners, not just those from Gitmo, Politico reports.

Shortly after taking office in January, President Obama ordered the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay closed by January 2010. Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric Holder raised the possibility that the administration may not meet that deadline.