While we are all understandably focused on coping with the pandemic, fossil fuel behemoths like Enbridge Energy Partners hope to take advantage of our distraction to pursue their own destructive goals. Enbridge operates Line 5, the 67-year-old twin pipelines that rest on the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac and carry up to 23 million gallons of crude oil and other unrefined fossil fuels daily between Superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Ontario. Line 5 has long been considered a major environmental catastrophe waiting to happen, as I described here. The “solution” that Rick Snyder and his cronies pushed through with Enbridge while Snyder was on his way out of office in 2018 proposes replacing the pipelines with one massive tunnel to be dug underneath the lake beds (and keeping the pipelines in operation until the tunnel is done). Both Gov. Whitmer and AG Nessel ran on a platform to decommission Line 5 and block this new tunnel, but so far their efforts have not succeeded in undoing Snyder’s dubious deal.
TODAY, Wednesday, May 13, is the last day of a public comment period (to the Michigan Public Service Commission) for citizens to weigh in on the propriety of a step that Enbridge very much wants to be pro forma. The details of the whole permitting process are of course arcane and complex, but the strategy Enbridge is currently promoting is quite audacious even for them. Enbridge wants to expedite the overall advancement of their tunnel project by claiming that many of the reviews that would ordinarily be required to approve it should be deemed unnecessary, given the state’s authorization of the original pipelines back in 1953.
If you seek more background information about this topic, please feel free to consult
- Fact sheets on Line 5 from FLOW (For Love of Water), a major environmental non-profit dedicated to protecting the Great Lakes, especially this one critiquing the tunnel
- The oil and petroleum product siting authority document produced by the Michigan Public Safety Commission
- Recent press releases produced by Oil and Water Don’t Mix, another environmental advocacy group opposing Line 5, about the end run that Enbridge would like to make around the standard approval process for a project of this scope.
- If you’re REALLY interested in a deep dive, check out the recent report (October, 2019) commissioned by the MI AG, MI Department of Natural Resources, and the MI Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. To my general-reader’s eye it appears to be deeply skeptical of Enbridge’s ability to make good on the requirement to remediate any damages resulting from a tunnel rupture (to say nothing of the folly of investing billions in a climate-killing energy source).
But the core objection for the purposes of public comment now was expressed succinctly in a joint statement released last month by Great Lakes activist group leaders:
“Enbridge is proposing to the Michigan Public Service Commission that a bad decision made 67 years ago in 1953 should simply be rubber-stamped today,” said Anne Woiwode, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter Chair. “The reality is that since 1953 Enbridge has caused millions of gallons of oil to pollute Michigan’s waters and that Line 5 is not needed by Michigan. For us it’s all risk and little benefit.”
To sign a petition urging Gov. Whitmer to stop Enbridge’s effort to subvert appropriate oversight through issuing an emergency order, follow this link. (There is no published deadline for this action.)
To submit your own comment to the Michigan Public Service Commission in opposition to Enbridge’s opportunistic strategy to evade scrutiny under contemporary standards, including public safety and environmental impacts, follow this link TODAY (linked portal hosted by Oil and Water Don’t Mix.) Sample text is provided to be revised as you wish. First edit: If you prefer to contact the MPSC directly, email them at mpscedockets@michigan.gov and be sure to use the case number in the subject line, “Enbridge Application Case No. U-20763.” Second edit: The page explaining the process regarding Enbridge’s request for a declaratory ruling by the MPSC is here.
Let’s take advantage of this opportunity to tell Enbridge and the State of Michigan what we value most: the safety of the largest fresh water system in the world along with all the creatures who depend on it.