Oil Spills

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 the U.S. Enbridge also has an expansive history of oil spills including one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history when Line 6B ruptured and spilled over 1 million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo river. Enbridge’s Line 5 is currently running under the Straits of Mackinac. 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 would not have been granted if requested today. 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. 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. 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.

The Line 3 pipeline was built by Enbridge in the 1960s. This pipeline was the source of the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history, which spilled 1.7 million gallons of crude into a tributary of the Mississippi River. In 2015, Enbridge requested to increase the capacity of its pipeline network by rerouting Line 3. Enbridge estimated that the completed pipeline expansion would transport 760,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day. The route of the new pipeline would cross over 200 bodies of water.