Environmentalists appeal Michigan regulators’ approval of pipeline tunnel project

Environmentalists are challenging Michigan state regulators’ decision to approve encasing part of an aging Enbridge Energy oil pipeline that runs beneath a canal connecting two Great Lakes, arguing they did not adequately consider alternatives to minimize climate impacts.

The Environmental Law & Policy Center and the Michigan Climate Action Network filed a brief in a state appeals court on Thursday arguing that because the state Public Service Commission found that construction would emit greenhouse gases, it should have forced Enbridge to prove there were no alternatives to the project.

The groups also claim that the commission failed to develop a methodology to measure the impact the gases could have on climate change and failed to consider what could happen if the pipeline were closed.

An email sent by the Associated Press to the commissioners’ general mailbox on Friday was not immediately returned.

Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said in an email that the commission had carefully reviewed all aspects of the tunnel project. He asked why the groups wanted to overturn that decision. Even if they prevail, the pipeline in the strait would continue to operate, Duffy said.

Enbridge wants to build a protective tunnel around a six-kilometer section of its Line 5 pipeline, which runs along the bottom of the Strait of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan with Lake Huron.

Enbridge has operated the pipeline since 1953. It transports up to 23 million gallons (87 million liters) of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario. Fears of a potentially catastrophic oil spill in the strait have grown since 2017, when Enbridge officials disclosed that engineers had known about gaps in the pipeline’s protective coating in the strait since 2014. Those fears intensified after a boat anchor damaged the line in 2018.

Enbridge officials insist the pipeline is structurally sound, but in 2018 they reached an agreement with then-Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s administration that the company would build the protective tunnel at a cost of $500 million.

Current Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, opposes continuing to operate the pipeline under the strait, even if it were embedded in a tunnel. She sides with environmental groups, indigenous tribes and tourism companies who believe the pipeline is at risk.

Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit in 2019 seeking to invalidate the easement allowing the line to run under the strait. That case is still pending. Whitmer ordered Enbridge to shut down the pipeline in 2020, but the company ignored the shutdown deadline.

The state Public Service Commission approved the tunnel project in December. Enbridge only needs approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to proceed.

Meanwhile, last year, a federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin, gave Enbridge three years to shut down part of Line 5, which runs through the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation.

The tribe sued Enbridge in 2019 to force the company to remove a 12-mile pipeline that runs through its reservation, arguing that the pipeline was prone to leaks and that land contracts allowing it to operate on reservation land expired in 2013.

The company has proposed a 41-mile pipeline diversion to end the dispute with the tribe. It has appealed the shutdown order to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; the case is pending.