Line 5 Pipeline

Public comments are due by the end of the week after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a tunnel alternative last month.

Line 5 transports up to 22.68 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids through the Straits of Mackinac each day, with one University of Michigan researcher pointing to the region as the worst place for a Great Lakes Oil Spill.

Weeks before an anticipated final permitting decision regarding the Line 5 pipeline tunnel project, federal regulators put a new option on the table. Environmentalists panned the last-minute change as a 'bait-and-switch'

The massive oil spill in the Kalamazoo River 15 years ago polluted the water and shoreline and left oil-coated wildlife. More than a million gallons of oil was recovered along a more than 35 mile stretch of the river.

The environmental review is a major step toward a permitting decision on the controversial proposal to build a tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac. The last day for the public to comment on it is June 30.

Political and business leaders have been congregating on Mackinac Island this week to discuss state policy, but this afternoon about 150 people showed up to protest the Line 5 tunnel, ahead of Govenor Gretchen Whitmer's address at the policy conference.

The federal review of the Line 5 tunnel project will be sped up through new emergency procedures under an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The tribes already had concerns about the process, but news that the Army Corps will likely fast-track the federal permit for the pipeline tunnel was “the final straw,” said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community.

The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld a permit for Enbridge Energy’s plan to bury an oil pipeline beneath the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed in 2019 by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, and the intention was to void a 1953 easement that allowed Enbridge to run the dual pipelines across the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac.