Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) has ordered a Canadian energy company to shut down an oil and gas pipeline that runs through the Straits of Mackinac, claiming the pipeline is a “ticking timebomb” even though the company says the line has never leaked into the straits.
The Guardian reported that Whitmer told the Canadian company, Enbridge, to shut down the pipeline known as Line 5 by Wednesday due to activist fears that it could spill any day. The pipeline has operated for nearly 67 years and, according to Enbridge, the portion of the pipeline that runs through the straights has never leaked. A different Enbridge pipeline spilled 845,000 gallons of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River back in 2010.
Further, Enbridge has been “working to tunnel beneath the lake bed to further improve the safety of the pipeline,” the Guardian reported, because the pipeline has been hit in the past two years by boat anchors and cables.
“These oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac are a ticking timebomb, and their continued presence violates the public trust and poses a grave threat to Michigan’s environment and economy,” Whitmer’s office said in a statement regarding the pipeline.
The Guardian reported that Whitmer campaigned on shutting down this pipeline and is now pushing for its closure even as the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency declaration for 17 states and the District of Columbia following a cyberattack on the country’s largest pipeline. – READ MORE
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