Ensuring Our Emergency Response Plans Are Current

We have comprehensive emergency response plans that are tailored to each business unit to cover their operations and associated risks, including geographic-specific information. We regularly review, audit, update and test these plans. In 2017, we focused on integrating systems across the combined company. Our emergency management programs outline the review and improvement cycles. Relevant information from our emergency response plans is shared with local emergency services providers.

How We Respond

Infographic: How We Respond

Training Our Emergency Response Teams

We have defined roles and responsibilities for those who would be involved in emergencies. The training that these individuals receive aligns with the role they will fill during an emergency and the hazards associated with their area of operation.

As part of our emergency response training, we use the Incident Command System (ICS), a federally-recognized emergency response methodology applied across North America by military, first-response agencies, and local, state, provincial and federal governments. ICS enables our employees and contractors to react quickly and efficiently to the emerging issues and challenges that are inevitable in a real-life emergency response.

In addition to ICS training, we also design emergency response training programs that meet the specific needs of each of our business segments, and which reflect their specific risks and types of emergency situations. For example, operations staff in our liquids pipelines business segment may complete booming, skimming and boat-handling courses.

By the end of 2017, we had provided emergency response training to 3,271 of our employees and direct contractors. The training requirements are unique to each business segment based on the hazards that may be encountered during an emergency.

By the end of 2017:

99% of the 2,231 identified Gas Transmission & Midstream team members had completed required response training.
95% of the key response team members in our Utilities business segment had completed their response training.
Within our Liquids Pipeline business segment 90% of the required training courses have been completed.
Spotlight: ICS Seminar in Texas Emphasizes Teamwork and Process

In March 2017, in Fort Worth, Texas, about 150 members of the Enbridge team took part in a five-day training seminar called ICS School 2017—and gained a greater appreciation of the Incident Command System, a standardized emergency response system used across North America by military, first response agencies and government. Read the story.

Spotlight: Enbridge Gas Distribution Operates a State-of-the-Art Training Facility

Enbridge Gas Distribution's (EGD) Technology and Operations Centre (TOC) in Markham, Ontario, opened in October 2012 and is a leading North American gas distribution training facility – both technically and environmentally.

Inside its 105,000 square foot main building, the centre offers practical, hands-on learning as well as traditional classroom environments. Outside, the centre’s defining feature is a streetscape where workers are trained on real-life, adaptable situations in a fully functioning distribution system. It includes infrastructure common in an urban community such as full-sized roads and buildings that represent different residential, commercial and industrial premises. Compressed air is used to simulate natural gas and offers a controlled, safe environment for training Enbridge employees and contractors.

In 2017, the TOC conducted more than 5,000 technical training sessions and ensured 9,215 Environment Health and Safety (EHS) and Operator Qualification (OQ) certifications were completed by employees.

Spotlight: Enbridge Emergency Response Full-scale Exercise at Cass Lake, Minnesota, September 26-28, 2017

In 2017, Enbridge settled a Consent Decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard relating to incidents in 2010 on the company’s Line 6B pipeline in Marshall, Michigan and Line 6A pipeline in Romeoville, Illinois. As part of that decree, Enbridge is required to complete a set of agreed-upon exercises, the first of which was held in Bemidji, Minnesota in September 2017. This included exercising a hypothetical spill into an environmentally and culturally sensitive area. The exercise involved members of the Enbridge team and federal, state, local and tribe representatives.

Spotlight: Superior Fire Department, Enbridge Mobilizing Development of an Industrial Response Group

We’ve teamed up with the fire department in Superior, Wisconsin to launch the Superior Industrial Response Group—a working mutual-aid agreement that trains and focuses on responding to petroleum-based industrial emergencies. Read the story.

Spotlight: School-focused Natural Gas Safety Campaign Offers Potential Life-saving Lessons for Kids

With the help of a simple scratch-‘n’-sniff brochure, 750 students in an Ontario elementary school learned a lesson that one day could save lives, as well as why identifying natural gas is important and what actions to take if they think there might be a gas leak. Read the story.