In an Oct. 15 article by Mike O'Rourke in the Brainerd Dispatch, Stewart Mills, a candidate for the U.S. House, expressed his strong support of the proposed Enbridge Sandpiper pipeline, noting, "These guys have their act together."
Additionally, in a Facebook post this month, Mills boasted he had gone to Duluth and "visited with Enbridge to learn about the politics keeping them from building a great pipeline through our part of Minnesota."
In this meeting with Enbridge officials, did Mills inquire about the company's 700-plus oil spills that have occurred the past decade? Did Mills seek information about the Enbridge pipeline that breached in a marsh near Cohasset, Minn., in 2002, spilling over 250,000 gallons of crude oil and threatening the Mississippi River?
Did Mills ask about the two Enbridge employees at the Clearbrook, Minn., terminal who died in 2007 in an uncontrollable blaze caused by a pipeline leak? Did Mills question Enbridge about the 250,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled following a series of pipeline ruptures in Wisconsin in 2007?
Did Mills press Enbridge executives about the 2010 pipeline blowout of 840,000 gallons of crude oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River? To date, over $800 million has been spent on clean-up--some of it taxpayer dollars--making it the "most expensive onshore spill cleanup in U.S. history," according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
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Did Mills ask any questions at all?
Perhaps Mills should heed the advice of the great American journalist and social critic, H.L. Mencken, who wrote, "I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant."
Ken Hasskamp
Baxter
KEN HASSKAMP was a longtime district representative for the late Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn.
