THE PROBLEM WITH THE LINE 5 OIL PIPELINE
Every day, nearly 23 million gallons of oil flow through two aging pipelines in the heart of the Great Lakes, just 1.5 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge. Constructed during the Eisenhower administration in 1953, the two 20-inch-in-diameter “Line 5” pipelines owned by Canadian company Enbridge, Inc., lie exposed at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac - a busy shipping channel.
Enbridge’s pipelines, which run about 1,000 feet apart at depths ranging from 100 - 270 feet, have laid on the bottom of the Straits for more than six decades. Enbridge installed several support structures under the pipelines in 2006 and again in 2010 and 2018, following the company’s oil spill into the Kalamazoo River - the nation’s largest-ever land-based oil spill. Now, hundreds of supports elevate 3-miles of the pipeline off the lakebed into the turbulent current. This design was never approved and makes the pipeline unsafe.
Enbridge officials have said that properly maintained pipelines can last indefinitely, but the company’s history of major spills in Michigan and across North America proves otherwise. Today, much of the oil flowing through the Line 5 pipelines (90 to 95% of it) is coming from Canada and taking a shortcut through Michigan and the Straits of Mackinac before crossing back into Canada near Port Huron.
Line 5 has spilled 33 times and at least 1.1 million gallons along its length since 1968.
https://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/problem