INDIAN RIVER, MI (AP)-- Emergency agencies have practiced responding to a worst-case spill from oil pipelines running beneath the Straits of Mackinac.
About 200 people participated in Wednesday's drill in Indian River in the northern Lower Peninsula.
The emergency management departments in Charlevoix, Cheboygan and Emmet counties; Michigan Department of Environmental Quality; and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have all taken part, along with Enbridge Inc. The Calgary, Alberta-based company owns the pipeline.
Participating agencies have spent 18 months planning the exercise, which tested plans for placing boom to contain spilled oil.
EPA coordinator Ralph Dollhopf tells WWTV/WWUP that Enbridge and government agencies "have learned a lot about how to clean up oil in river environments" from dealing with an 800,000-gallon oil spill from an Enbridge pipeline into the Kalamazoo River system in 2010.