International coalition pushes for action on Line 5 during Kalamazoo River spill anniversary

Nichole Keway Biber, Mid-Michigan campaign organizer for Clean Water Action discusses the Kalamazoo River oil spill and threats posed by Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline during a July 25 gathering at the Michigan State Capitol. | Kyle Davidson

Fourteen years after Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline ruptured , spilling up to a million gallons of tar-sands crude oil into a Kalamazoo River tributary, environmental advocates continue to speak out against Enbridge’s pipelines, calling for a shutdown of the company’s controversial Line 5.

At six gatherings on Thursday in Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada, members of the Oil & Water Don’t Mix Coalition, Sierra Club and Sierra Club Canada, Le Vivant se Défend, Water Watchers, Cross Border Organizing Working Group and Stop Line 9 Toronto launched North American Oil Spill Day to draw attention to ongoing concerns of environmental contamination in the Great Lakes.

Activists have long pointed to Enbridge’s Line 5 as a threat to environmental health and Indigenous sovereignty. The pipeline stretches from Northern Wisconsin, through the Straits of Mackinac into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, through the Straits of Mackinac through the Lower Peninsula and into Sarnia, Ontario.

The pipeline transports about 23 million gallons of crude oil and liquid natural gas daily, with opponents saying a rupture of the pipeline would be catastrophic.

As part of the gathering in Lansing, a small group gathered to discuss their concerns about Line 5, as well as actions they could take to oppose the pipeline’s efforts to continue operation.

While Enbridge has maintained Line 5 is operating safely, Nichole Keway Biber, Mid-Michigan campaign organizer for Clean Water Action, said at a Lansing event that the company made the same assurances ahead of the Kalamazoo River spill, noting it took the company 17 hours to shut down the pipeline after repeated warnings of a leak . She later noted that the company did not shut down Line 5 after it was dented by an anchor strike , with the company instead reducing its maximum operating pressure until composite sleeves could be wrapped around the damaged portions of the dual pipeline.

Keway Biber also referenced news coverage of a recent modification of a consent decree , which requires Enbridge to investigate circumferential cracks in four pipelines in the company’s Lakehead System — Lines 1, 2, 4 and 62 — and alters the requirements for assessing whether circumferential cracks must be excavated and repaired, among other actions. These new assessment methods would also apply to cracks in Lines 5, 6A and 10 that Enbridge discovered in previous In-Line Inspections but that the company has not yet excavated and repaired.

In an email to the Advance , Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the company had agreed to the modification of the consent decree agreement and would follow the actions outlined in the agreement as required by the U.S. Environmental Protections Agency (EPA).

“We have worked very hard to satisfy the conditions set out in the Consent Decree and believe we are making significant progress so that the rest of the Decree can be terminated,” Duffy said. “Safety is one of our core values and remains our top priority at Enbridge, every day.”

Enbridge conducted inspections for circumferential cracks on Line 5 in 2017 and 2018, and will reanalyze the data from those inspections in accordance with the modified consent decree, Duffy said. While this analysis has not yet been completed, no features of concern are expected, he said.

None of the cracks in Line 5 identified by the consent decree are located in the straits of Mackinac, with the company performing annual inspections on that section of the dual pipeline, Duffy said.

However, a rupture at any point in the 645 mile long pipeline would be disastrous, with the pipeline stretching through various bodies of water, Keway Biber said.

“Line 6B went into a stream first, then into the Kalamazoo River. All of this water is connected,” Keway Biber said.

“We need those responsible for our public trust waters to be taking their responsibilities incredibly seriously. We know all the basics, you can’t drink oil,” Keway Biber said.

Keway Biber and Oil and Water Don’t Mix Coordinating Director Ross Fisher told individuals attending the gathering they could submit comments on a proposed reroute of Line 5 around the Bad River Reservation demanding a full environmental review of the proposal from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

In 2019, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed a lawsuit against Enbridge after refusing to renew the company’s easements to operate the pipeline on their land, which expired in 2013.

Wisconsin’s Western District Court ruled that Enbridge had been trespassing since the expiration of the easements, requiring the company to pay out more than $5 million in damages and shut down the 12-mile section of pipeline running through the tribe’s sovereign territory by 2026.

Enbridge has maintained it is not trespassing, arguing its 1992 easement agreement allows the company to remain on the reservation through 2043. Both Enbridge and the Bad River Band have appealed the ruling, with the band asking for a greater share of the company’s profits, a shutdown of the pipeline within six months and stricter monitoring of a section of the pipeline the Tribe has warned is at risk of being exposed and rupturing due to erosion .

As Enbridge works to reroute the 12-mile section of the pipeline outside the Bad River Reservation, the Band has raised alarms that the 41-mile reroute would still pose a threat to treaty lands and waters, cutting through more than 900 waterways upstream from the reservation.

The USACE opened public comment on its environmental assessment of the reroute in May, later extending the deadline to submit public comments on the effort to Aug. 4.

Oil and Water Don’t Mix is also working to pressure U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to take action to shut down Line 5. Buttigieg previously called for a shutdown during his 2020 presidential campaign.

In an amicus brief filed in the Bad River appeal, President Joe Biden’s administration said that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), housed within the Department of Transportation, has a major role to play in regulating pipelines.

“We’re holding them to that and saying that if you say that this department is responsible for regulating this extremely dangerous pipeline, then we want Secretary Buttigieg to take all actions possible in getting this pipeline shut down,” Fisher said.

The coalition is also pressuring Biden directly to revoke the presidential permit Line 5 uses to operate across the U.S.-Canada border.

“We can’t afford to wait on just the courts to take action,” Fisher said.

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