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Opinion | We can prevent an oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac
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The 73-year-old Enbridge Line 5 dual pipelines crossing the Straits of Mackinac are one anchor strike away from becoming North America’s greatest environmental disaster.
For seven decades, this pair of aging pipelines has moved oil and natural gas liquids through one of the most sensitive freshwater junctions on Earth. Narrow, turbulent, and powerful, studies show the Straits are the worst possible place for an oil spill.
What would a major spill look like? Studies by the University of Michigan’s Water Center used sophisticated hydrodynamic modeling to simulate worst-case releases. The findings are stark: within hours, oil would spread over vast areas of shoreline and open water. The oscillating currents of the Straits would push oil back and forth, making containment measures nearly impossible and hopeless during the long winter months.
The Straits of Mackinac are a convergence point for Great Lakes shipping — an unavoidable bottleneck that concentrates large vessels into a confined, shallow, high-traffic corridor. Every day, freighters, tankers, and other large vessels pass through these waters, navigating currents, wind, ice, congestion and potential mechanical problems.
Predictably, we have narrowly averted disaster in the Straits. Multiple times.
In just the last several years, there have been at least three confirmed anchor strikes or anchor-related cable drags in the Straits that have damaged either the Line 5 pipelines themselves or nearby transmission cables. These are not minor scrapes; in one well-documented 2018 incident, an anchor from a commercial vessel gouged and dented the pipeline and severed active electrical cables, releasing 800 gallons of dielectric fluids into the water. Since then, two detached ship anchors have been discovered on the lakebed near Line 5. Each represents a near-miss that could just as easily have been a direct hit.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) reports that in a 10-year period, there were 306 offshore pipeline incidents in the United States, 71 of which released hydrocarbons into water. The pattern is brutally clear: when anchors and pipelines meet, the pipeline loses — and the water pays the price.
Coast Guard data only heightens the alarm. According to figures reported by the Detroit News, ships operating in the Great Lakes lose power, propulsion, or steerage on average twenty times a year, necessitating an anchor throw.
The public health, economic and ecological consequences of a Line 5 failure would be profound.
More than a million Michiganders rely directly on Lake Michigan and Lake Huron for drinking water, and far more across the broader Great Lakes basin. Contamination of municipal water intakes would force costly shutdowns and long-term treatment challenges.
People who have invested lifetimes of savings into shoreline homes and businesses would face steep losses. Commercial and recreational fishing industries would suffer from contaminated stocks, damaged spawning habitats and reputational harm. Ports and shipping would be disrupted if cleanup operations made areas of the lakes off-limits. In communities that depend on summer tourism, a single contaminated season can be the difference between survival and closure.
Proponents of Line 5 argue that it is an essential piece of energy infrastructure for Michigan, but it’s worth noting that upward of 88% of the 400-450 thousand daily barrels of crude oil carried by Line 5 are bound for Canadian refineries in Sarnia and eastward through Ontario and Quebec. Independent analyses and state planning efforts have shown that there are viable alternatives to pumping fossil fuels through the Straits. Studies by supply chain experts show that the pipeline system could quickly recalibrate to route Line 5’s fossil fuels around, rather than through, the heart of the Great Lakes.
Meanwhile, Enbridge has proposed replacing the existing Straits segment with a tunnel to encapsulate the pipeline. The tunnel faces profound construction challenges and poor bedrock quality and remains years away from completion. In the meantime, the existing, vulnerable pipeline would continue operating in the open waters of the Great Lakes.
The bottom line is that Line 5 and the proposed tunnel pose unacceptable risks to the Great Lakes, and we must demand that governments, regulators, and courts move beyond half-measures and incremental fixes. We can decommission Line 5 in the Mackinac Straits, implement safer supply routes, and prevent an oil spill disaster. The Great Lakes are too vital to do anything less.
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