Almost three weeks after at least 1.3 million gallons of hazardous natural gas liquids spilled from an aging oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin, grinding service to a halt, fossil fuels once again began gushing through it last weekend.
But cleanup in the area continues, and members of the Bad River Band of Chippewa Indians — whose reservation the pipeline cuts across — warn that it’s just a matter of time before it happens again, there or somewhere else, with even more catastrophic consequences.
In late July, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the state’s approval of a proposed tunnel to replace part of the pipeline, known as Line 5, that crosses the Straits of Mackinac, requesting additional environmental review.
In light of the decision, and pointing to years of back-and-forth litigation and a history of spills, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last week urged the oil company, Canada-based Enbridge, to find alternatives to the tunnel and its old dual pipelines, which she said are “just one accident away from disaster.”
“Considering expanding the life of a 73-year-old pipeline, with all of this happening, is just beyond me,” said Beth Wallace, Great Lakes climate and energy director at the National Wildlife Federation.
Enbridge’s large pipeline network transports about 30% of the crude oil produced in North America and nearly 20% of the natural gas used in the United States, according to its website. Line 5 transports 20 million gallons of fossil fuels daily from Wisconsin to Ontario, supplying crude oil to refineries in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada. In the past five decades, more than 1 million gallons of oil have reportedly spilled along its 645-mile route.
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To continue this daily task, and in response to state and federal lawsuits, Enbridge proposed building a tunnel for the section of the pipeline in the lakebed of the Straits, which connect lakes Michigan and Huron and are located in Michigan, eight years ago. A year later, it also proposed rerouting the portion traversing the Bad River Band reservation to a new segment nearby that is farther away from Lake Superior.
But environmental activists and Indigenous groups don’t want a new tunnel or a reroute. They want Line 5 fully decommissioned, arguing its vulnerability to future leaks poses a risk to the livelihood of tribes in the region and the drinking water of millions of Great Lakes residents, including in and around the Chicago area.
“What happened up there in Saxon, (Wisconsin),” said Joe Bates, tribal elder of the Bad River Band, referring to the recent spill, “is what’s going to happen in another section of Line 5 somewhere else. It just so happens that now it was our turn — this close. And yes, it hasn’t happened on the reservation, but you know it’s still just a matter of time.”
As erosion moves the course of the Bad River, it risks unearthing the buried pipeline. According to a federal complaint by the tribe, the river was 320 feet from Line 5 in 1963. Almost six decades later, it was no more than a dozen feet away. The next storm, Bates said, or the one after, risks closing the distance between the riverbank and the pipeline. But the proposed reroute has done little to reassure the tribal citizens, who think it’s still too close to their land and would remain a threat to waterways. A relocation would also mean future spills elsewhere, including the Kakagon Sloughs — the only extensive coastal wild rice bed in the Great Lakes region — and downstream into Copper Falls State Park.
Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy previously told the Tribune that the company’s monitoring data shows Line 5 operates safely, and that a tunnel at the straits would make “what has always been a safe pipeline even safer.” Last week, he emphasized that the environmental review the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted before the federal government issued its approval “represents the highest standard of environmental review required for major critical energy and infrastructure projects.”
But concerns abound over spills occurring along the old pipeline, through the rest of Wisconsin, at the Straits of Mackinac, in Michigan and far beyond, across the massive lakes.
“There’s just a growing consensus, it seems like, that having these existing pipelines in the straits is a bad idea, and the tunnel project is not looking like the solution — and we certainly don’t think it’s the solution,” said David Scott, from the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center, and one of the lead attorneys in the case brought to the Michigan Supreme Court. “Oil shouldn’t be running through the Great Lakes. It’s just a terrible idea.”
Experts have said the complex currents in the Straits of Mackinac could make a spill there catastrophic — spreading oil rapidly and across long distances, polluting miles of shoreline, harming countless species and habitats, and causing billions in damages. Cleanup would also be extremely difficult.
The additional environmental assessments now required by the court would likely delay permitting for a tunnel at least another decade, while keeping the current infrastructure a “ticking time bomb,” Whitmer wrote. “One spill in the Straits could do irreparable damage to our water, our economy, and our way of life.”
“Develop a planned, orderly transition that protects Michigan families and businesses and gets oil out of the Straits far sooner,” she urged the company’s president and CEO. “That alternative may not preserve Enbridge’s current market share or be as profitable for your shareholders. But those are not reasons to expose the Great Lakes to another decade of unthinkable risk. Too much is at stake.”
The Trump administration granted Enbridge a key permit in mid-August, but any new work on the project is, after the July 31 decision, subject to the Michigan Supreme Court’s new environmental standards requiring evaluation of state-issued permits.
“Let’s be clear — we already have an agreement with the State of Michigan to advance the Great Lakes Tunnel Project. Without years of litigation and political intervention, this project would be moving toward completion,” Duffy said. “We continue to stand ready to meet with the Governor to look at ways that protect Michigan’s natural resources while ensuring the continued safe operation of critical energy infrastructure.”
Line 5 was temporarily shut down after an Aug. 25 spill of natural gas liquids — mainly propane and butane — when a parked and unoccupied flatbed subcontractor truck reportedly struck the pipeline after rolling into an open excavation site outside the Bad River reservation in Iron County, Wisconsin, bordering Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The company initially hoped to restore service within 11 days; that goalpost was later moved to Sept. 12. The pipeline was returned to service that weekend. The company did not respond to questions about the extent of the spill.
Enbridge has previously said decommissioning Line 5 would cause refined product shortages and price hikes throughout the region. Refineries in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ontario and Quebec would receive 45% less crude product than their current demand, according to the company. It would also mean a shortfall of about half the current transportation fuel supply in the same states and provinces.
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But the shutdown — which lasted almost three weeks until the company completed a 1,500-foot temporary bypass around the spill site over the weekend — demonstrated quite the opposite, opponents say.
Consultants have argued that energy markets could and would adapt to a decommissioned pipeline, Scott from the law and policy center said.
“And lo and behold, the last couple of weeks, that has been happening by necessity because the pipeline has been shut down,” he said. “So, clearly, there are alternatives to running oil through Line 5 and through the Straits of Mackinac.”
Enbridge did not respond to questions about how propane supply and prices were affected, if at all, by the pipeline’s temporary shutdown.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has said that, if the pipeline is decommissioned, propane prices would go up by 5 cents to 11 cents a gallon, and expert testimony in court has indicated increases in Michigan and Wisconsin might be less than 1 cent per gallon.
Natural gas liquids are hydrocarbons separated from natural gas during processing and transported by pipeline as liquids. But when exposed to the outside environment, these liquids quickly turn to gas. According to company updates, 31,000 barrels of mostly propane and butane did so after the leak, dispersing into the atmosphere. Some 2,000 barrels of liquids were contained at the site a few days after the spill.
In Enbridge’s spill updates, the company said natural gas liquids are used for heating homes and drying crops, and are “the building blocks” for many daily-use products such as plastics, medical supplies, electronics and clothing.
“Those types of industry talking points are just like Big Tobacco talking points,” said Wallace of the National Wildlife Federation. “They are downplaying a major problem and a major hazard to the community and the environment, and it should not stand.”
As of Tuesday, a no-fly zone remained in place, and a family was still evacuated from their home. The company was using flare stacks to burn the remaining gases, as well as injecting compressed air to evaporate any liquid product.
In the meantime, Enbridge says monitoring near the flare, at the spill site and in the surrounding areas shows safe air quality, and that surface and residential well water samples have been tested and show no impacts. The company will test soil at the site once it can be accessed and removed, if necessary.