Up North Progressive

Today Dana Nessel began the process of decommissioning Enbridge Line 5. The 66-year-old pipeline poses a devastating ecological threat to the Straits of Mackinac and the Great Lakes. The Attorney General filed a motion to dismiss Enbridge’s June 6, 2019, lawsuit to force the state to stick to an unconstitutional law passed during the shame duck session of 2018. She also filed a lawsuit against Enbridge in Ingham County Circuit Court to have the oil and gas pipelines shut down and removed from the straits.

The motion and lawsuit are the Attorney General’s response to Enbridge walking away from negotiations with the state of Michigan to decommission the pipelines earlier in the month. Per AG Nessel’s summons, the pipeline violates both the public trust doctrine and the Michigan Environmental Protection Act. In April of 2018, an anchor strike occurred on electrical wire housing in the straits that resulted in cooling fluid inside the housing to leak and continued to do so for days after the strike. Former AG Bill Schuette sued Vanenkevort Tug and Barge for the strike that caused damage to the power line housing as well as the pipelines under the Mackinac Bridge. The Straits of Mackinac are well known for whipsawing currents that require boats using their anchors when traveling through the narrow waterway.

The best course of action for Michigan and the Great Lakes is close down and remove Enbridge Line 5 before a catastrophic oil leak happens in the Straits of Mackinac. Today, Attorney General Dana Nessel began that process to finally shut the pipeline down.