Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the director of the state's Department of Natural Resources today notified Enbridge that the 1953 easement allowing the company to operate dual pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac to transport petroleum and other products is being revoked and terminated.
They also filed a lawsuit asking the Ingham County Circuit Court to recognize the validity of this action.
A University of Michigan expert is available to discuss these developments.
Jennifer Read
Jennifer Read is director of the U-M Water Center. Former Water Center hydrodynamicist David Schwab, now retired, led a 2014 study that sounded the alarm about the potentially catastrophic environmental consequences of an oil spill from the Straits of Mackinac pipelines. The computer-simulation study found that oil would quickly contaminate shorelines miles away, in both lakes Michigan and Huron.
In a follow-up study two years later, Schwab found that more than 700 miles of shoreline in lakes Huron and Michigan are potentially vulnerable to oil spills if the Line 5 pipelines rupture. Up to 152 miles of coastline in lakes Huron and Michigan could be fouled by a single spill in the straits, according to the simulations.
"The precautionary principle generally encourages us to avoid using a chemical or a process whose long-term impacts are uncertain, and we can apply it to the Line 5 situation, too," Read said. "It is safest-for the health of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and Michigan's Great Lakes-dependent economy-to stop using the pipeline until we are certain that destructive spills would not occur. If we can't be certain, we shouldn't use it at all."
