Update July 24, 2017: Every day, nearly 23 million gallons of oil are pumped through Line 5, a 64-year-old pipeline that runs through the heart of the Great Lakes. A spill here could put up to 700 miles of freshwater coastline at risk. At the end of June, the State of Michigan released a Line 5 Alternatives report for public comment. Please call on the State of Michigan to terminate the easement allowing Line 5 to jeopardize our Great Lakes. Text “SHUTDOWN” to (231) 480-4112 or visit oilandwaterdontmix.org to make a public comment by August 4th.
“Winds out of the southwest at 20 miles per hour with gusts up to 30. Waves 3-5 feet building throughout the day.”
We sat around the table in our cabin, a.k.a. Camp Flapjack, on the southern shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, listening to NOAA’s weather forecast for the next morning. We were finalizing plans for the last leg of our 500-mile, fossil-fuel-free journey from Superior, Wisconsin, to Mackinac City, Michigan. Our plan was to sail our 22-foot sailboat the next day across the Straits of Mackinac, where 22 million gallons of oil flow through a pipeline 200 feet below the surface—right through the heart of the Great Lakes. The forthcoming weather seemed a bit much for our small vessel, but this was the stretch that prompted us to embark on this trip in the first place.
Four months prior, my roommate Colin and I had sat around the table educating ourselves about Line 5—Enbridge Energy’s worn out oil pipeline, which travels from Wisconsin, through Michigan and onto Canada. Line 5 is 64 years old and crosses pristine rivers, wetlands and lakes along its path, not to mention the five-mile underwater section through Lake Michigan. The pipeline was only intended to last 50 years, yet Enbridge, which is responsible for the largest inland oil spill in history only five years ago, insists there is nothing to worry about. Experts say that if this pipeline were proposed today, it would never be allowed, yet Enbridge and the state of Michigan, continue to let oil flow right through the middle of some of the greatest freshwater resources in the world. Everything we read about Line 5 added to our worry.
Significant corrosion. Failing braces. 700 miles of coastline at risk. Oil and water don’t mix. A disaster waiting to happen.
Colin and I are both from Michigan. We spent our childhoods running through hardwood forest so thick light barely reaches the forest floor, chasing frogs in rivers whose water is so clear it barely distorts the view of the rocks at the bottom and listening to the north winds blow across the Great Lakes onto pine-laden shores bringing with them some of the freshest air around. To say this part of the world is important to us would be understating it.
Learning there was a chance an oil spill could harm these places we loved so much was almost unfathomable. I called my friend, Liz Kirkwood, who runs FLOW, a non-profit in Northern Michigan working to decommission Line 5. The campaign was building a case against Enbridge Energy, but needed more public pressure on the State of Michigan to stop the flow of oil through Line 5.
In a lot of cases, folks like us don’t have much room to flex our muscles to stop a pipeline. Line 5 is different. The line flows through Lake Michigan, which is considered a “public trust,” meaning a natural resource that belongs to the people—a resource no corporation or individual can control for private gain or put at undue risk. If they do, the state has the obligation and duty to act immediately on behalf of its citizens.
In short, the governor of Michigan can revoke Enbridge’s pipeline easement at any time if it puts the lakes at risk. Some would judge a corroding, 64-year-old pipeline to be a bit risky. We just need to convince the governor of it.
In October 2015, Colin and I set out from Duluth, Minnesota, on a 500-mile, fossil-fuel-free trip to tell the story of the people, places and resources at risk because of Line 5. We zig-zagged along the pipeline’s path—sailing, biking, climbing, running, surfing, fishing and soaking up as much of 