Line 5 Report: May 2017

by Front Street Writers

May 5, 2017

TRAVERSE CITY -- Following is our report on Line 5, the result of two months of intensive research and discussion. This article lays out the issue, positions, and arguments, while the related articles (see the table of contents to the right) go into more detail or cover related facets or parties. We wrote with an audience of our peers (age 16-22) in mind.

Aerial View of the Straits of Mackinac. Photo Credit: Tessa Lighty

The Issue

Built in 1953 and now operated by a Canadian oil company, Enbridge Inc., Line 5 is a pipeline that carries nearly 23 million gallons of crude oil under the Straits of Mackinac every day. The pipeline’s existence was relatively unknown throughout Michigan until 2012, when the National Wildlife Federation published a report by Jeff Alexander and Beth Wallace titled Sunken Hazard. Advocacy groups read the report, and a rally in favor of removing the line was held in the summer of 2013 at the Straits of Mackinac. Since then the pipeline’s presence in the Straits has become an increasingly polarized issue. Those against the pipeline worry a leak would negatively affect the Great Lakes and destroy tourism jobs while others worry that removing the line would eliminate oil jobs. Support structures were added to the pipeline in 2006 and again in 2010 after another Enbridge pipeline burst and released more than 1 million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River. These increased safety measures have done little to placate activists who insist the line must be removed. (For the full text of this article, see "A Report on Line 5" in the article list to the right.)