Enbridge Energy Makes Donation to Friends of the Forest Preserve District of Will County

Enbridge Energy officials present a donation to the Friends of the Forest Preserve District Foundation on April 9. Pictured from left to right are: Foundation Board member Mike Fricilone, Foundation Board Chairwoman Ann Dralle, Forest Preserve District Board President Suzanne Hart, Enbridge executives John Gauderman and Scott Clark, and Foundation Board member Denise Winfrey.  Photo by the Forest Preserve District of Will County.

Enbridge Energy recently made a donation to the Friends of the Forest Preserve District of Will County.  According to its website, "Enbridge owns and operates the world’s longest crude oil and liquids pipeline system, exporting 65 per cent of Western Canadian oil and importing 13 per cent of U.S. daily imports as the largest single conduit of crude oil into the United States."

The Enbridge Southern Lights Pipeline begins in Manhattan, Illinois and ends in Alberta, Canada.

Enbridge tanks in Manhattan, Illinois

Enbridge's Line 78 Project is a pipeline that will cross Will County as it goes from Flanagan, Illinois to Griffith, Indiana.  

Press release on the donation from the Forest Preserve District of Will County:

"Enbridge Energy donated $266,400 to Friends of the Forest Preserve District of Will County, the Forest Preserve District’s non-profit Foundation, during the April 9 meeting of the District’s Board of Commissioners.

The donation will be used to purchase trees, tree and shrub groupings and seeds for a restoration project at the District’s 790-acre Forked Creek Preserve, which is located in Florence and Wesley townships and a portion of Wilmington. The project will restore a 24-acre wooded corridor and a complementary 18-acre buffer site, which will benefit bats, migratory birds and other wildlife species for years to come.

The check, which is the largest donation to the District’s Foundation to date, was accepted by Foundation Board Chairwoman Ann Dralle. Forest Preserve Board of Commissioners President Suzanne Hart thanked Enbridge for voluntarily mitigating the impact of the Superior, Wis.-based company’s new Line 78 crude oil pipeline that will run from Pontiac to Griffith, Ind.

Scott Clark, Enbridge’s Line 78 project director, said the company always searches for ways to mitigate its pipeline projects and it has donated $50 million to communities where it does business over the past decade.

“As we come through (areas), we leave them either the same or better than we found them,” he said. “We really strive to give back to the local communities.”

John Gauderman, director of Enbridge’s Chicago region operations, said the company’s partnership with the District and its Foundation “provides us another opportunity to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the communities where we operate and the environment,” he said.

Past donations from Enbridge have been used by the Forest Preserve District to purchase signs for Isle a la Cache Museum, Centennial and Veterans Memorial trails, and land restoration and tree planting at O’Hara Woods."