Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 oil and gas pipeline is embattled. Environmental groups and tribal governments say it poses a critical threat to the Great Lakes where it passes through the Straits of Mackinac. The line faces challenges in court including from the state Attorney General. But as Sehvilla Mann reports, no one paid much attention to Line 5 until the oil spill on the Kalamazoo River 10 years ago.
Beth Wallace is with the National Wildlife Federation. She works from its office in Ann Arbor. But Wallace is originally from Marshall. When Enbridge Energy’s Line 6B pipeline broke near the city in 2010, Wallace headed home to help with the cleanup. The pipe had spilled close to a million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River.
The week right after spill probably one of most frustrating have ever been exposed to
The Marshall spill overlapped with the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
We didn’t have resources in our area to manage what unfolding because focus on gulf, heartbreaking
Wallace says Enbridge made an announcement during the cleanup.
They wanted to increase pressure on line 5
A different pipeline that crosses from the UP into Lower Michigan at the Straits of Mackinac. At the time of the Marshall spill, Line 5 had sat on the lakebed in the Straits for nearly 60 years. Even seasoned activists like Wallace didn’t know about it. But the spill drew her focus to Michigan’s pipelines.
I dove into history of Line 5, wanted to know how being maintained and operated...
Now Line 5 is a household name in Michigan. The battles over its future are statewide news. Enbridge insists that the line is safe. That it’s carefully watched. But a growing list of tribal governments, water resources groups and even businesses disagree. Wallace says the more she learned about Line 5, the more she believed it endangered the Great Lakes.
Currents there extreme in terms of how swift they are, how unpredictable they are and the surface currents could be completely different than currents in depth of same location which makes cleanup near impossible
Around the state, other groups began to notice Line 5. Liz Kirkwood directs the Traverse City group For Love Of Water or FLOW. FLOW does legal analysis for the causes it supports, including shutting down Line 5. Kirkwood says before the Marshall spill,
At the beginning of this awakening there was thought that because it was an interstate oil pipeline, the feds were the key decision makers
Kirkwood says even the state seemed to think so. She recalls her conversation with the Department of Natural Resources.
Was saying, ‘I’m looking at this pipeline, it’s located in the streets of Mackinac, think there’s some kind of deed,’ guy on other end said – oh we throw away all the docs after 40 yeas. I said as a lawyer pretty sure you wouldn’t throw this away. He got back to me, he found this 1953 easement, and when we found it started to unearth and understand the role that state of Michigan played as trustee
FLOW’s idea of the state’s role began to change. Jim Olson is the group’s founder and president.
Our conclusion was the state had the primary jurisdiction because state looked over safety once pipeline built but it was up to the states to locate and authorize, particularly in a public trust bottomlands, a crude oil pipeline – it’s up to the states on the location
Olson says Enbridge is facing five major legal or administrative challenges over its pipeline in the Straits. Including Attorney General Dana Nessel’s lawsuit, which seeks to void the company’s original easement with the state. Enbridge might win these battles. But it’s clear the company’s headaches from the Line 6B oil spill didn’t end in Marshall.