President Trump signed a law Tuesday that will create a national center for expertise to study the impacts of oil spills in freshwater environments.
The research center is expected to be placed somewhere in Michigan.
U.S. Senator Gary Peters sponsored the law. He said in discussions with the Coast Guard they have admitted that not much is known about the cleanup of freshwater oil spills.
“There are microorganisms that live in saltwater that actually break down oil and effectively eat oil. So you spread the oil around and the microorganisms do their thing. ”
But, Peters said, those organisms don’t exist in the Great Lakes.
“If you just spread the oil around the Great Lakes if there is an oil spill there you’ve just spread the oil around water that is being consumed by nearly 40 million Americans.”
Peters said mitigating the impacts of a potential Line 5 spill beneath the straits is one of the main reasons the center is important.
“We need to have a better understanding of how to clean up what tend to be inevitable spills before they have catastrophic consequences.”
The coast guard research institution will be set up within the next year.