Officials with Enbridge said Friday that a recent Michigan Supreme Court decision is delaying a controversial project to encase the Line 5 pipeline, which carries crude oil and natural gas liquids through the Straits of Mackinac, into a concrete tunnel.
Members of Enbridge's team spoke at the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority meeting Friday in St. Ignace. The authority is the state agency, originally established in 2018 by former Governor Rick Snyder, to oversee the tunnel project. The authority consists of three governor-appointed positions that fall under the Michigan Department of Transportation.
Late last month, the Michigan Supreme Court voted 6-1 to order the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state's utility regulating agency, to redo a permit it gave Enbridge in 2023, a process that could take years to complete. The court said state regulators did not properly consider the environmental impact of project.
Anna Mooney is the government relations manager for Enbridge. She said the court decision "puts us in a significant delay event for the project."
The comments come after the project secured a key federal permit last week and just a few days after a section of Line 5 in northern Wisconsin leaked natural gas liquids.
According to Enbridge, an unoccupied semi-truck rolled onto an excavation site Tuesday on a Line 5 valve project, hit a pipe and caused the leak. No one was injured, and investigations into air quality are ongoing.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources had asked Enbridge to stop work on the project amid the leak. Enbridge temporarily shut the pipeline down, and said it will continue to "work on the response and restoration of service to the pipeline."
Members of the public spoke out against the project at the meeting in St. Ignace on Friday. Environmentalists and all 12 of Michigan's federally recognized Native American tribes have opposed the project.
Samantha Cooper with the Michigan Climate Action Network spoke at the meeting. She said the Wisconsin incident "should raise alarm bells for what could very well happen in the Straits of Mackinac" and said there needs to be more investment in renewable energy sources.
"Climate catastrophes [are] happening more and more that are costing more and more," Cooper said, who went on to describe her position as nonpartisan.
Bill Latka with Oil and Water Don't Mix, an environmental group that opposes the tunnel project, said that the Wisconsin incident, along with a 2010 oil spill event near Kalamazoo on Enbridge's Line 6B pipeline, which runs from Griffith, Indiana, to Sarnia, Ontario, suggests Enbridge has a bad track record.
"How could we expect the same company who can't even lay a pipeline across dry land to blast a tunnel through the Straits of Mackinac without disrupting the 21% of the world's first surface water," he added, "I don't think we can."
Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the tunnel project will "further protect the Great Lakes," while delivering energy to the region. He added that a tunnel would eliminate the risk of a ship's anchor striking the tunnel that could lead to an oil spill.
In addition, on Friday, Governor Gretchen Whitmer filed a legal brief in another state lawsuit that is challenging legality of the tunnel project.
"My brief continues my seven-year fight to stop Enbridge from pumping oil through the Great Lakes," she said in a statement.
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Editor's note: Enbridge is among Michigan Public's corporate sponsors.
