by:John Domol, WOODTV.com staff
MARSHALL, Mich. (WOOD) — It was 10 years ago that one of the worst inland oil spills in American history played out in West Michigan — the Enbridge oil spill on the Kalamazoo River.
The Kalamazoo River incident is today, the costliest inland oil spill in U.S. history.
Enbridge Energy Partners, the company that owns the pipeline, was ordered by the U.S. government to pay a $61 million penalty. Enbridge also paid $1.2 billion for cleanup and restoration and reached a $75 million deal with the state.
Environmental specialists said the July 2010 spill dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River, polluting a nearly 40-mile stretch of the river and its tributaries.
Thanks to mother nature and the cleanup effort, part of the oil spill evaporated, some was scraped off the top and the rest was dredged. A decade later, it’s hard to tell that such a disaster ever happened.
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