The decision by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy comes months after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered the pipeline to shut down this May, underscoring the complicated road ahead for both Enbridge and its detractors in Michigan.
In an announcement Friday, state officials acknowledged wide-ranging public concerns about the tunnel, but said state law limited their nine-month review to a narrow question: Will the tunnel project comply with Michigan’s environmental laws ?
They concluded the answer is yes, and granted Enbridge permits to discharge wastewater into the Great Lakes and conduct its tunnel-building work in protected wetlands.
“Although this proposed tunnel project has illuminated numerous related policy issues, the basis for our decision is required to be limited to compliance with the relevant environmental statutes created by our legislature,” said Liesl Clark, director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and E
Enbridge is awaiting permits in that project, which aims to replace the aging dual span pipes at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac with a new pipe running through a tunnel beneath the lakebottom. Enbridge officials have said they plan to start building the tunnel this year and finish by 2024, but the company is still awaiting state and federal permits it needs to begin construction.
Citing a litany of easement violations and broader concerns that the pipeline poses a dire risk of an oil spill, Whitmer notified Enbridge in November that she was revoking and terminating the 1953 easement that allows the company to operate Line 5 in the Straits. Whitmer ordered the Straits portion shut down by May.
The Latest from the First
The view from Alcona County, “First Of The 83”, turns toward the Straits of Mackinac this month.
The South Fork Dam created a lake for rich people to build cottages, high above working-class Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The dam burst in 1889, sending a Mississippi-sized wall of water through Johnstown, sweeping the city away its buildings and 2,200 people.
HMS Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. You know what happened there.
British Petroleum designed its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to go farther down to find oil than any previous platform. In 2010, after a decade of service, while drilling a well 18,000 feet below the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico, Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, killing 11 crew members. The ensuing leak released almost 5 million barrels of crude oil in 87 days, from Texas to Florida.