Michigan regulators approve $500M pipeline tunnel project under channel linking 2 Great Lakes
Michigan regulators have approved a $500 million plan to encase in a protective tunnel a portion of an oil pipeline that runs beneath a channel connecting two Great Lakes
Michigan officials approved a $500 million plan Friday to encase in a protective tunnel a portion of an aging oil pipeline that runs beneath a channel connecting two Great Lakes, leaving just one more regulatory hurdle for the contentious project.
The state's three-person Public Service Commission approved the project in the Straits of Mackinac on a 2-0 vote. Commissioner Alessandra Carreon abstained, noting she just joined the commission four months ago.
The commission's chairperson, Dan Scripps, said the tunnel is the best way to mitigate the risk of a spill as the state slowly transitions to renewable energy sources.
“An oil spill in the straits would be, in a word, catastrophic,” he said.
Opponents lined up in front of the commission to complain after the vote, blasting the project as a boondoggle that will lock the state into using fossil fuels even longer and endanger the environment.
The plan still needs approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is still compiling an environmental impact statement. A final decision may not come until 2026.
Enbridge Energy has been operating the Line 5 pipeline since 1953. The pipeline moves up to 23 million gallons (87 million liters) of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario.
A 4-mile (6-kilometer) portion of the pipeline crosses the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac. After an Enbridge pipeline leaked about 21,000 gallons (79,500 liters) of crude oil into a Kalamazoo River tributary in southern Michigan in 2010, the state formed a task force to
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