Latest news with #Anti-Line5
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Enbridge Line 5: A clear and present danger
Anti-Line 5 graffiti at Enbridge's pumping station in Mackinaw City, Mich. (Laina G. Stebbins | Michigan Advance) Canadian energy company Enbridge's Line 5 traverses an extremely sensitive ecological area across northern Wisconsin, 400 rivers and streams as well as a myriad of wetlands, in addition to a path under the Mackinac Straights between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, all the while skirting the southern shore of Lake Superior. Such close proximity to the Great Lakes, lakes that hold over 20% of the world's fresh surface water, lakes that supply drinking water to nearly 40 million people, yes, that does indeed make Line 5 a ticking time bomb. Northern Wisconsin is also a very culturally sensitive area, home to the Bad River Reservation. The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa were guaranteed rights to their lands by an 1854 treaty with the U.S. government. The easements for Line 5 across the reservation, granted to Enbridge by the Chippewa, expired in 2013 and the Bad River Band chose not to renew them. Enbridge continues to operate the line, illegally and in direct violation of the Bad River Band's right to sovereignty over their land. The Bad River Band has a guaranteed legal right to their land. They also have a right to Food Sovereignty, the internationally recognized right of food providers to have control over their land, seeds and water while rejecting the privatization of natural resources. Line 5 clearly impinges on the Band's right to hunt, fish, harvest wild rice, to farm and have access to safe drinking water. A federal court ruled that Enbridge has been trespassing on lands of the Bad River Band since 2013 and ordered the company to cease operations of Line 5 by June of 2026 (seems that immediate cessation would make more sense), but rather than shut down the aging line, Enbridge plans to build a diversion around the Bad River Reservation. They plan to move the pipeline out of the Bad River Band's front yard into their back yard, leaving 100% of the threats to people and the environment in place. Liquid petroleum (crude oil, natural gas and petroleum product) pipelines are big business in the U.S. With 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines, the U.S. network is the largest in the world. If we continue our heavy and growing dependence on liquid fossil fuels, we must realize that we will continue to negatively impact the climate and the lives of everyone on the planet. Instead of moving to a just transition away from fossil fuels, liquid or otherwise, the government continues to subsidize the industry through direct payments and tax breaks, refusing to acknowledge the cost of pollution-related health problems and environmental damage, a cost which is of course, incalculable. There are nearly 20,000 miles of pipelines planned or currently under construction in the U.S., thus it would appear that government and private industry are in no hurry to break that addiction, much less make a just transition. While no previous administration was in any hurry to break with the fossil fuel industry, they at least gave the illusion of championing a transition to cleaner energy. The current administration is abundantly clear. Their strategy is having no strategy. They don't like wind and solar and they plan to end any support for renewable energy. They don't care if they upend global markets, banking, energy companies or certainly any efforts to help developing countries transition away from fossil fuels. Pipelines are everywhere across the U.S., a spiderweb connecting wells, refineries, transportation and distribution centers. The vast majority of pipelines are buried and many, if not all, at some point cross streams, rivers, lakes and run over aquifers. Pipeline ruptures and other assorted failures will continue and spillage will find its way into the bodies of water they skirt around or pass under. It's not a question if they will leak, but when. Enbridge controls the largest network of petroleum pipelines in the Great Lakes states, and they are hardly immune to spills. Between 1999 and 2013 it was reported that Enbridge had over 1,000 spills dumping a reported 7.4 million gallons of oil. In 2010 Enbridge's Line 6B ruptured and contaminated the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. Over 1.2 million gallons of oil were recovered from the river between 2010 and 2014. How much went downstream or was buried in sediment, we'll never know. In 2024 a fault in Enbridge Line 6 caused a spill of 70 thousand gallons near Cambridge Wisconsin. And Enbridge's most infamous pipeline, the 71-year-old Line 5 from Superior Wisconsin to Sarnia Ontario, has had 29 spills in the last 50 years, loosing over 1 million gallons of oil. Some consider Line 5 to be a 'public good' because, as Enbridge argues, shutting the line down will shut down the U.S. economy and people will not be able to afford to heat their homes — claims they have never supported with any evidence. A public good is one that everyone can use, that everyone can benefit from. A public good is not, as Enbridge apparently believes, a mechanism for corporate profit. Line 5 is a privately owned property, existing only to generate profits for Enbridge. If it were a public good, Enbridge would certainly be giving more attention to the rights of the Bad River Band, the well-being of all the people who depend on the clean waters of the Great Lakes and to protecting the sensitive environment of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. They are not. Their trespassing, their disregard for the environment, their continuing legal efforts to protect their bottom line above all else, only points to their self-serving avarice. The Bad River Band wants Enbridge out, and in their eyes it is not a case of 'not in my back yard' they do not want Line 5 in anyone's back yard. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Anti-Line 5 coalition raises alarms as tunnel project is placed on emergency permitting list
Anti-Line 5 sign at a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Detroit District public scoping meeting regarding the Line 5 tunnel project, Saint Ignace, Sept. 8, 2022 | Sharon Fighter Opponents of Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline are warning that a January 20 executive order could fast track the permitting process for the pipeline's controversial tunnel project. Indigenous activists and environmental organizations have advocated against the pipeline for years, raising particular concern about a four-mile stretch running through the Straits of Mackinac that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. In 2018 the pipeline was dented in three places by an anchor strike, with another cable or anchor strike in 2019 harming the pipeline's protective coating and severely damaging a support, breeding further fears of the pipeline rupturing. Opponents warn a spill from the pipeline would be catastrophic, with Line 5 transporting more than 22 million gallons of light crude oil and light synthetic crude through the straits daily. Though activists argue the pipeline is too great a threat to continue operating, Enbridge signed an agreement with GOP Gov. Rick Snyder in 2018 to build a utility tunnel in the Straits aimed at containing any potential spills. The dual pipelines would be relocated into a concrete-lined tunnel buried beneath the lakebed. However, in order to move forward with construction, the pipeline must receive permits from the Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), the Michigan Public Service Commission and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). While the Army Corps of Engineers announced in March 2023 that it would extend its environmental review for the tunnel project, with plans to issues its draft environmental impact statement in Spring 2025, members of the anti-Line 5 coalition Oil and Water Don't Mix are warning President Donald Trump's executive order declaring a national energy emergency may expedite the permit's review. The USACE has until Feb. 20 to designate emergency projects for expedited processing, with the Line 5 tunnel project among those under consideration for an emergency permit on the corps' website. Emergency approval would undermine the extended environmental review process, the coalition said. 'Rushing the approval process for an oil tunnel beneath the Great Lakes is the opposite of emergency action – it's reckless endangerment,' Oil and Water Don't Mix Campaign Coordinator Sean McBrearty said in a statement. 'The Great Lakes provide drinking water for millions of people and support a multi-billion dollar tourism and fishing economy. Ensuring that the Great Lakes continue to be a shortcut for Enbridge to move Canadian oil that we don't need is not an emergency. This is precisely the kind of project that demands careful scrutiny and robust public participation, not a rubber stamp.' Trump's executive order instructs the USACE to exercise its emergency powers to the fullest extent practicable, with the coalition warning these measures raise serious concerns about transparency and environmental protection. 'The public has a right to weigh in on projects that could impact their water, their livelihoods, and their communities for generations to come,' McBrearty said. 'We're putting the Army Corps on notice — we're watching this process closely and will fight any attempt to bypass essential environmental reviews or silence public voices.' Oil and Water Don't Mix has demanded the USACE maintain its full environmental review process, ensure meaningful opportunities for public participation and reject any efforts to classify the project as an emergency in need of expedited review. The National Wildlife Federation raised similar concerns, arguing that fast tracking the project would set a dangerous precedent and place the waters wildlife and people of the Great Lakes in danger. When asked about the status of the tunnel project's USACE permit, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy emphasized that the pipeline is critical energy infrastructure. 'Enbridge submitted its permit applications in April 2020 for the Great Lakes Tunnel, a project designed to make a safe pipeline safer while also ensuring the continued safe, secure, and affordable delivery of essential energy to the Great Lakes region,' Duffy said in an email. While the state has provided its environmental permits, and the MPSC has approved the company's plan for the tunnel project, the project is still awaiting action on an environmental impact statement and a permitting decision five years later, Duffy said. However, the permit issued by the MPSC is currently under appeal, following legal challenges filed by the Bay Mills Indian Community, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, alongside several environmental organizations. Enbridge must also redo one of its permits as part of a legal agreement with EGLE and the Bay Mills Indian Community, allowing its current water resources to expire on Feb. 25, 2026 while incorporating updated information on the project's potential impacts to nearby wetlands into its new application. EGLE Strategic Communications Advisor Scott Dean told the Advance in an email that the company had completed mapping of wetlands that could be impacted by the project and the Wetland Identification Program had performed their services in preparation for Enbridge's wetlands protection and Great Lakes bottomlands permit application. However, this application has not been submitted yet, Dean said. Additionally, Enbridge filed another application for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit last week, with its current permit set to expire on Oct. 1, 2025, Dean said. Initiated by the Clean Water Act in 1972, this permit aims to protect water quality by imposing limits on the amount of pollutants that can be discharged into a body of water. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
