Report on Line 5

Student Journalists writing on Line 5

Introduction to the Project

By Alyssa Huiskens

May 5, 2017

TRAVERSE CITY, MI.-- The authors of the articles on this website are high school junior and senior students of the Front Street Writers program at the Traverse Bay Area Career-Tech Center (CTC) in Traverse City, Michigan. We applied and got into this intensive course to strengthen our skills as writers and to learn both creative and professional craft techniques. The articles you see here are the results of our journalism unit.

We discovered the controversy surrounding an oil pipeline called Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac, which is about a two-hour drive from Traverse City. It captured our attention for two reasons: first, it was a hot topic among local environmentalists, and yet the general public was unaware of its existence. Second, it was an issue much closer to home than many have realized. Seventeen student journalists have spent three months (February-April 2017) using investigative journalism, researching and discussing the topic of Line 5 with a variety of professionals ranging from activists to scientists. We’ve looked at the issue from multiple perspectives and even attended an official Pipeline Safety Advisory Board Meeting in March 2017. This website is a compilation of all seventeen individually written articles, as well as some collaboratively written articles and editorials.

Our overall goal for this website is to provide a source for people to educate themselves on this issue and from it form their own opinion.