Rio Grande LNG Backer to Partner with Enbridge Despite Egregious Safety Record

Houston, TX -- NextDecade, the company behind the proposed Rio Grande LNG fracked gas export facility at the Port of Brownsville, is reportedly partnering with Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge to build the double Rio Bravo Pipeline to feed the facility. 

Enbridge has one of the worst safety records of any major pipeline company. The company was responsible for one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history, the disastrous 2010 tar sands pipeline spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which spilled more than a million gallons of oil and cost more than $1 billion to clean up. Between 1999 and 2010, Enbridge’s pipelines had more than 800 spills in the U.S. and Canada, leaking 6.8 million gallons of oil. Just last month, an Enbridge gas pipeline in Kentucky ruptured and caused an explosion that left one person dead and five others hospitalized, and an Enbridge pipeline explosion killed a man in East Texas in 2014. 

Enbridge is also the operator of another recently operational Valley Crossing pipeline in the Rio Grande Valley that would feed fracked gas to the proposed Texas LNG and Annova LNG facilities also at the Port of Brownsville. 

In response, Sierra Club Brownsville Organizer Rebekah Hinojosa released the following statement: 

“Rio Grande LNG would already be a disaster for the Rio Grande Valley, and adding a company with as egregious a track record as Enbridge to the mix makes it even worse. Enbridge has made it clear over and over that they can’t be trusted to safely build a pipeline through our communities, and this deal is further proof that this project should not move forward.”