“Let’s be clear: the ‘Line 5’ oil spill threat to the Great Lakes won’t be solved by emergency anchor rules that Gov. Whitmer called for today,” said Liz Kirkwood, executive director of FLOW. “The real solution to the threat of Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac is to shut it down now.”
“The Enbridge oil pipelines are past their life expectancy, bent, and battered. The governor’s duty is to protect the Great Lakes from Enbridge, which has a well-documented track record of deceiving the state of Michigan about the condition of Line 5. The fastest way to protect the driver of Michigan’s economy and drinking water source for half of all Michiganders is to revoke the 1953 easement allowing Enbridge conditional access to the state’s waters and bottomlands. Burying this risk in an oil tunnel, which the Whitmer administration is negotiating now with Enbridge, is not a solution. It’s a recipe for another century of risk to our waters and our climate.”
Images and video were released yesterday showing damage to the Line 5 oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac from an April 1, 2018, anchor strike. The footage showed a gash across the east pipeline and several dents, exposed steel, and scrapes on the west pipeline. The longest dent is nearly two–feet long. Enbridge supplied the video and photos to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and to the U.S. Coast Guard, which is investigating the anchor strike. Enbridge told the committee they considered the evidence ‘confidential’and didn’t want it published. U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) released the footage this week, after conferring with the Coast Guard.
Today, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer directed the state Department of Natural Resources to proactively file an emergency rule to prevent anchor strikes in the Straits of Mackinac. According to the governor’s office, the emergency rule “will require large vessels to verify no anchors are dragging before passing through the Straits.” Whitmer also made a formal request to the U.S. Coast Guard to create a similar rule for all foreign vessels, which lie beyond state authority.
