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The Canadian oil and fossil fuel company Enbridge owns and operates over 17,000 miles of crude oil and liquids pipelines and is a stakeholder in more than 193,000 miles of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) pipelines in America. Enbridge’s Line 5 is currently running under the Straits of Mackinac, through the Bad River Native American reservation, which violates several treaties with the Bad River Ojibwe tribe. A University of Michigan study has called the Straits the worst possible place for an oil spill in the entirety of the Great Lakes! Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and others have said the right-of-way through the Straits and Bad River reservation would not have been granted if requested today. Enbridge has proposed a reroute around the Bad River reservation. However, this reroute still crosses over 200 bodies of water that provide fresh water and fish to the Bad River tribe. Currently, Line 5 transports 540,000 barrels of light crude oil, light synthetic crude, and natural gas liquids which are refined into propane. After the reroute, Line 5 would be transporting Alberta tar sands oil which is thicker and more acidic than regular crude. Because the oil is more acidic, the pipeline would be more likely to corrode and burst, leaking a more dangerous form of oil into the Bad River reservation! 68 local governments throughout the state have signed resolutions to shut down Line 5. The 12 Federally Recognized Tribes in Michigan have also submitted resolutions calling for the shutdown of Line 5.
There have been 1,068 Enbridge spills across the entire Enbridge pipeline system that have dumped 7.4 million gallons of oil into the environment between 1999 and 2013 - an average of 71 spills and 500,000 gallons per year. From 2002 to present, Enbridge reported 307 hazardous liquids incidents — one incident every 20 days on average. These spills released a total of 66,059 barrels (2.8 million gallons, or more than four Olympic-sized swimming pools) of hazardous liquids. Of the 307 incidents, 138 were attributed to equipment failure, 43 to corrosion failure, 45 to material failure of a pipe or weld, 37 were due to incorrect operation, 26 to natural force damage, and 18 to other causes including excavation damage. A separate database of U.S. federal enforcement actions contains a total of 45 PHMSA penalty records for Enbridge totalling over $248 million in fines since 2010. In 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) settled with Enbridge for $177 million in connection with the Kalamazoo River spill. The settlement was the largest Clean Water Act fine for an inland oil spill in U.S. history – and second overall only to BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. (Greenpeace)
Fast Facts:
Fast Facts:
“A University of Michigan 2014 study funded by the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes Regional office found that in a worst-case scenario, more than 700 miles of Great Lakes shoreline could be significantly contaminated.” (Greenpeace)
Current Enbridge data shows that Line 5 has lost 26% of its wall thickness due to corrosion.
“Of the 307 incidents mentioned before, 291 were crude oil spills, 9 were refined petroleum product spills, and 7 were highly-volatile liquids (HVL). These incidents led to the release of 66,059 barrels (2.8 million gallons) of hazardous liquids, of which nearly all (66,041 barrels) were crude oil. Of this total, more than 20% (13,410 barrels) was never recovered.
Forty-three of Enbridge’s spills are considered “significant,” meaning they resulted in more than 50 barrels (2,100 gallons) released.” (Greenpeace)
Alberta’s tar sands are among the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive fuel sources on the planet, with greenhouse gas emissions 30% higher than standard crude oil. To produce one gallon of tar sands oil, 6 gallons of water have to be used and contaminated.
Michigan only uses between 5-15% of the oil transported by Line 5, in the form of propane in the Upper Peninsula, a need which can easily be covered by truck transportation.
Enbridge was given a deadline on may 12th by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to stop sending oil through its 68-year-old Line 5 pipeline on the bottom of the Straits. However, Enbridge has continued to run Line 5 long after its deadline has passed, while simultaneously challenging Gov. Whitmer’s shutdown order in court! Enbridge argues that pipeline decommissioning decisions must be made at the federal level, therefore Gov. Whitmer does not have the authority. Gov. Whitmer has also proposed several safety concerns to a pipeline at the bottom of the Straits.
“Enbridge’s response to these safety concerns is a proposal to bury a tunnel one hundred feet beneath the lakebed, encasing a replacement section of pipe. This project was approved by former Gov. Rick Snyder in 2018, but that decision could be undone if Whitmer’s shutdown order is upheld in court.” (Bala Sivaraman)
It is undoubtedly true that aging pipelines pose serious risks, but new pipelines are not risk free, and given the long proposed lifetimes of these projects, new pipes eventually turn into old ones. And while Enbridge may keep proposing alternatives, It is worth noting that many of the considered alternatives to the Line 3 expansion considered in the EIS scored even worse on water protection metrics. This illustrates that the best way to protect the waters of Minnesota is to reduce oil consumption and rapidly transition toward clean energy. The truth is that there is no room for Enbridge’s expanded Line 5 pipeline in a Paris-compliant world, and increasing momentum toward electric vehicles and other clean transportation options could lead oil demand to peak and fall sooner than oil companies would like. (Bala Sivaraman) Ultimately, there is no failsafe method for transporting oil, therefore Minnesota should reject new and expanded oil pipelines and adopt ambitious transition policies to phase out the use of existing fossil fuel infrastructure!
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