Two years ago today, one of the largest oil leaks in U.S. history occurred when oil escaped from an Enbridge pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

As environmentalists in 29 cities across Canada and the U.S. stage protests to mark the occasion, Mike Hudema of Greenpeace Canada says they want to make sure the public knows how Enbridge responded to the leak.

“They ignored a crack and signs of corrosion for over five years,” Hudema tells 660News. “They ignored warning lights for over 17 hours.  Meanwhile millions of litres of tar sands crude poured into the Kalamazoo River.”

Hudema notes the spill might have happened in Michigan, but says in the end we’re all affected.

“We’re all Kalamazoo,” he says. “Oil spills could happen anywhere until we start transitioning to different forms of energy.  Until we do everything we can to ensure that our current pipeline system is as safe as possible.”

Hudema says that point is worth emphasizing in light of the fact that Enbridge is now trying to win approval for the Northern Gateway pipeline project, a proposed route running from the oilsands in Northern Alberta, through British Columbia, to the port in Kittimat, B.C.

(It’s) “not a company that we want building a pipeline that will cross over a hundred streams and rivers, many of which are salmon-bearing and integral to the B.C. salmon fishing industry through the largest intact temperate rain forest on the planet,” he says.  “You know, those are too important to risk to another tarsands-bitumen spill.”

To date, Enbridge has spent more than $725 million cleaning up the oil leak in Michigan, incurring the wrath of American regulators in the process for its monitoring of the pipeline and response to massive spill.