Don't let them tell you that it's too hard, or too expensive to shut down Line 5!
We are united by our love of the Great Lakes. They provide drinking water for millions of people in the United States and Canada, drive our economy, and define our way of life. Since 2013, FLOW has helped build a broad coalition—the Oil & Water Don’t Mix campaign—to prevent a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes. The source of this threat is Line 5, the aging oil pipelines crossing the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron.
Line 5 is owned and operated by Enbridge, the same Canadian corporation responsible for the 2010 spill of more than 1.2 million gallons of heavy tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River watershed near Marshall, Michigan. That spill sickened more than 300 people, permanently drove more than 150 people from their homes and properties, and continues to harm the environment to this day. It took four years and over $1.2 billion to clean it up to the extent possible, and remains one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history.
We need your help to prevent another Enbridge oil spill in Michigan’s fresh waters. Individuals, families, organizations, communities, tribes, businesses, and faith leaders are working together to shut down Line 5 before it’s too late. Learn more, and take action to protect the Great Lakes.
On November 13, 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took decisive action to shut down Line 5 by May of 2021 under the Public Trust Doctrine to protect the Great Lakes from the risk of a catastrophic oil spill. This historic action represents a clear victory for the Great Lakes and the citizens and tribes of Michigan, and recognizes that alternatives to Line 5 exist for supplying oil and propane. The State of Michigan, however, must remain vigilant until the oil stops flowing for good because Enbridge is defying the shutdown order, and Line 5 remains exposed to exceptionally strong currents, lakebed scouring, new anchor and cable strikes, and corrosion.
Explore Line 5
What is Line 5 in the open Great Lakes?
Watch recorded Line 5 Webinars
What's Enbridge's Proposed Oil Tunnel?
Films to watch and learn more about Line 5
What happens to the economy when we shut down Line 5?
A spill from Line 5 at the Straits of Mackinac could deliver a blow of over $6 billion in impacts and natural resource damages to Michigan’s economy, according to a study commissioned by FLOW. Conducted by nationally respected ecological economist Robert Richardson of Michigan State University, the study for the first time adds up potential costs of a Line 5 spill into the Straits of Mackinac and adjoining waters under a realistic – but not worst-case – scenario. The study estimates $697.5 million in costs for natural resource damages and restoration and more than $5.6 billion in total economic impacts, including:
- $4.8 billion in economic impacts to the tourism economy;
- $61 million in economic impacts to commercial fishing;
- $233 million in economic impacts to municipal water systems;
- Over $485 million in economic impacts to coastal property values.
Enbridge Energy is using the Straits of Mackinac as a convenient shortcut for transporting oil from the Canadian prairies to a Canadian refinery in Sarnia, with precious little of its product benefiting Michigan. Yet Michigan would absorb the lion’s share of the economic disaster resulting from a spill.
Line 5 Quick Facts
- University of Michigan studies call the Mackinac Straits the “worst possible place” for a Great Lakes oil spill, which could pollute up to 720 miles of shoreline along Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.
- Enbridge’s data reveal that sections of Line 5 in the Mackinac Straits are cracked and dented
- and a segment on land near the Straits has lost 26% of its original wall thickness.
- Under the best conditions, only 30% of an oil spill would be recovered.
- 1.5 million jobs are directly tied in some way to the Great Lakes, generating more than $62 billion in wages.
