The state of Michigan and the federal government are battling over the future of Line 5, a 645-mile long fossil fuel pipeline. The pipeline, owned by Enbridge, carries tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada under the straits of Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw), which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and divides Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from the rest of the state.
Built in 1953, Line 5 has experienced many large and small leaks over the past 73 years. After seeing underwater video of the deteriorated state of the pipeline, many groups came together in 2012 to form the Oil & Water Don’t Mix Coalition to try to shut the pipeline down. Member groups include national and local environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, as well as five indigenous tribes with treaty rights around the Strait.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with David Holtz, coordinator of the Oil & Water Don’t Mix Coalition about the history of the pipeline and the fight to decommission Line 5 before it ruptures and contaminates the Great Lakes, one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world.
DAVID HOLTZ: It had been built in 1953, 645 miles long and it really was constructed as a shortcut for Canada to get oil from their western provinces back to Ontario and Quebec going through Michigan. At the time it was built in 1953, it was quite the engineering feat, putting in a pipeline. It followed pretty closely by a few years, the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, which was an engineering feat in the straits connecting the upper and lower Michigan peninsulas. But people forgot about it until the rupture in 2010 in Kalamazoo River. And then National Wildlife Federation sent a rover down into the water to look at the pipeline and the straits once we realized there was a pipeline in the straits. And just looking at that video was pretty shocking for most people because this pipeline, 20-inch diameter pipeline, was laying on the lake bed in a lot of places.
A lot of the anchors that were supposed to be supporting it had fallen apart. There was all kinds of debris on the pipeline and the water in the straits has been compared to the power of Niagara Falls. It’s like a washing machine which goes back and forth and it’s constantly changing. So there’s all this pressure on this pipeline. It just didn’t look safe. And then the University of Michigan did a study and looked at what would happen if that pipeline ruptured. That study was sort of the second shock after we saw the visual, which documented that up to 700 miles of coastline in Michigan could be impacted because there’s 13 million gallons of liquid hazardous materials, oil and liquified propane coming through every day. So we just got organized and said, “We really need to do something about this. ” And it was pretty clear that people in Michigan didn’t want an oil pipeline in the Great Lakes.
MELINDA TUHUS: Isn’t it true that at some point Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said that it has to close down?
What we’ve been dealing with pretty much along the way are two things. Enbridge’s delay tactics trying to stop the state from shutting down the existing pipeline. And then a few years ago, they proposed building a tunnel, constructing an industrial tunnel in the straits at Mackinac underneath the lake bed and putting the pipeline in that tunnel as the solution instead of decommissioning.
There is an appeal before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on a different case involving Line Five that will decide whether the federal government can preempt the state government and completely knock the state out of being able to protect the Great Lakes from the pipeline, that it would be entirely within only the jurisdiction of the federal government.
There was a decision at the district court level that basically said that the state had no authority to protect the Great Lakes from this pipeline, that only the federal government was in charge of pipeline safety. And then the governor appealed that decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. And last week was the deadline for all of the parties in that case to file all their briefs. It would be a decision somewhere down the road on that.
But the real important decision in terms of the future of Enbridge’s proposed oil tunnel is probably going to be made by on or around July 7th and that’s when the state has to make a decision on a key permit application under the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act and the Clean Water Act. If the state doesn’t issue that permit, then the Army Corps of Engineers can’t issue a federal permit for the tunnel.
For more information, visit Oil and Water Don’t Mix Coalition’s website at oilandwaterdontmix.org.
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