Participants in the September 2017 training event used a number of work boats to deploy high-speed oil containment systems for open water, small and medium-sized containment boom deployment devices, and a high-performance skimmer oil recovery system that specializes in open-water recovery.

Over the past four years, through 2016, Enbridge has held an average of 385 exercises a year, including full-scale exercises, drills and equipment deployment drills, across our North American operations to test and improve our emergency preparedness and response systems.

“Everything we do is all about public safety and the environment. We want to make sure that by owning this equipment, we can deploy it properly,” Greg Carter, Enbridge’s supervisor of emergency preparedness, told media. “The risk on Line 5 is extremely low, but we want to overprepare for it . . . (it’s) for the sake of public safety that we do this.”

Enbridge's purchase of $7 million in equipment, announced in June 2016, will be purchased within two years, and includes ice response skimming systems, as well as additional containment, protection and absorbent boom, to enhance emergency response in multiple scenarios—rough open waters, ice cover, and near shore.

With education in class, on land, and out on the surface of Little Bay de Noc, about 50 participants familiarized themselves with some of the $7 million worth of additional emergency response equipment purchased by Enbridge for deployment along our Line 5 pipeline in Michigan.

Enbridge invests significantly in emergency response tools and training—about $80 million worth from 2012 through 2016—to stay prepared in the unlikely event of an incident.