Enbridge under-estimated oil spill cleanup costs in Kalamazoo River

In a report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Enbridge increased its estimate of how much it will cost to clean up the company’s Kalamazoo River oil spill.

The Kalamazoo Gazette reports that the company has revised its cleanup estimate from $585 million to $700 million.

Enbridge spokeswoman Terri Larson told the Gazette that costs have increased due to a need for additional testing, continual reassessments, shoreline cleanup and more operations to recover submerged oil.

In July, 2010 more than 800,000 gallons of tar sands crude spilled into the Kalamazoo River system through a rupture in the Enbridge pipeline that runs from Griffith, Indiana to Sarnia, Ontario.

More than 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River have been closed to the public since then, and Enbridge has missed a deadline set by federal regulators for removing oil from the river.

“Capturing and cleaning up this heavy oil is a unique challenge,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Director Susan Hedman said during a July press briefing on the cleanup. “No one at the EPA can remember dealing with this much submerged oil in a river.”