Another massive spill, this one in Michigan. I remember process and security engineering used to look up to the oil and gas industry. Models for information security often borrowed concepts like fail-safe monitoring. Diagrams and images of oil rigs and pipelines were used to illustrate risk in terms of care and dilligence. The theory was the risk was so high for them, they had developed extensive controls. The BS7799 standard was even developed in a large part by oil companies, if I remember correctly, involved in the high-risk high-reward North Sea and Middle East operations.

The oil companies clearly have a very different public image these days. Oil spill update: State of emergency declared as 800,000 gallons of leaked oil begins flowing through Kalamazoo County.

County officials said they began an emergency response at about 6 p.m. Monday after news spread that a 30-inch oil pipeline in Marshall sprung a leak and released oil into the Talmadge Creek, which feeds into the Kalamazoo River. Houston-based Enbridge Energy Partners said the pipeline has been shut down but that did not happen before more than 800,000 gallons flowed into the creek.

The rate of flow must have been very high but a 30-inch pipeline still would take a while to lose almost a million gallons. Loss prevention has large body of scientific study for the oil and gas industry. What was the delay in detection and response? Maybe things have shifted so far now in the management of energy and risk that they could learn a thing or two from information security.