Photo: Michigan Office of the Governor (AP)
Seizing the profits of a major oil company, making Canadians angry, tugboats causing havoc: It’s all happening in Michigan right now. The mandated shutdown of a major oil pipeline is brewing into a nasty fight that pits Michigan’s governor and environmental groups against a fossil fuel company—as well as the country of Canada.
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At issue are two pipelines owned and operated by Enbridge, an energy company headquartered in Canada, that ferry crude oil and natural gas to the U.S. via the Straits of Mackinac, a shipping channel in Michigan that connects two of the Great Lakes. The two pipelines are collectively known as Line 5—and they’re in pretty crappy shape. The lines were built in 1953, but were only designed to last for 50 years; Enbridge has, essentially, been stalling on making major repairs or replacements for close to two decades. Even before the pipelines met their expiration date, Line 5’s safety record has been pretty abysmal: Records collected by researchers in 2017 show that the pipeline has spilled at least 1.13 million gallons of fossil fuels in 30 separate incidents around Michigan since 1968.