Marshfield Residents Concerned About Pipeline Surveying

​A group of rural Marshfield homeowners has organized in opposition to any future expansion of the Enbridge pipeline easement that runs through their properties.

The group’s name, “80 Feet is Enough,” refers to the size of the existing easement, which already contains four pipelines. Homeowner Mark Borchardt said he became alarmed when an Enbridge crew surveyed his land for a possible expansion.

“If they took everything they surveyed,” Borchardt said, “we’d lose a huge piece of woods and the pipeline could be up to our house.”

Enbridge spokeswoman Jennifer Smith said the company hasn’t decided yet to expand the easement and add a fifth pipeline. “We do not have any concrete plans to build a new pipeline, nor do we have any timeline of when that may be determined,” she said.

If a new pipeline were built, as much as 2.9 million barrels of oil could flow through the easement each day. Borchardt and his neighbors think that’s too much, given that the flow in one of the existing lines, Pipeline 61, will soon be increased to 1.2 million barrels a day.

“If that Pipeline 61 were to break, the entire neighborhood would be coated in oil. I haven’t figured out yet how much depth we’d be under in an hour’s time, but that’s just a huge amount of risk that we’re assuming as property owners,” said Borchardt.

Smith said the increased flow can be done safely.

“We don’t have a perfect record, we understand that. But since 2012, we have invested over $4 billion in technology, in training, in equipment purchases, looking at the integrity of our pipelines,” she said.

Smith said if a new pipeline were built, as much as 2.9 million barrels of oil could flow through the easement each day. The rural Marshfield homeowners say that’s too much.

Thirteen Enbridge pumping stations in Wisconsin are being upgraded to accommodate the increased flow. Currently, all four of the existing lines together carry 2.1 million barrels of oil a day.

The addition of a fifth pipeline would have to be approved by the Department of Natural Resources.