GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Environmental groups say a proposed, massive infrastructure project to pipe oil and gas under the Straits of Mackinac for years to come is backwards thinking and runs counter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pledge to fight climate change.
“The day in 2028 when people gather to mark the inauguration of a new tunnel carrying tar sands oil is going to seem as out of tune as it’s possible to be,” said author and environmentalist Bill McKibben. “By 2028, we’re going to have to be making fundamental transformations if we have any hope of dealing with the climate crisis.”
McKibben joined state environmental groups and a former tribal leader in a telephone conference call Wednesday morning, May 22, to criticize the proposed Line 5 tunnel as locking Michigan into fossil fuel dependency at a time when the state and U.S. should actively be considering renewable options to combat climate change.
“It’s the effort of the fossil fuel industry to try and keep us in our present place for a few more decades -- a few more decades that, at this point, having wasted the last three decades, we simply don’t have,” said McKibben, who has written books on climate change since 1989 and runs climate action site 350.org.
The timing and topic of the call relates to Whitmer going back to the table with Enbridge on the future of Line 5 in the Straits. While she has halted her predecessor’s plan to construct the Line 5 tunnel, she later said she remains open to it if it aids in getting the 66-year-old pipeline decommissioned faster.
Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said “the energy on Line 5 is vital to families, schools, manufacturers and businesses and the tunnel project would make sure that energy continues to be safely delivered.”
Construction estimates on a tunnel beneath the Straits housing a Line 5 replacement initially anticipated completion in seven to 10 years. Revised estimates are now five years, or by 2024.
The Line 5 pipeline, built in 1953, runs 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Canada, and transports up to 540,000 barrels of light crude oil and natural gas liquids per day. Calls to shut down the pipeline were renewed in April 2018, when an anchor struck and dented the twin lines.
Whitmer’s office has declined to comment on how soon she wants Line 5 out of the Straits and what options, beyond the tunnel, she is considering to replace it, if at all. Her office did not return comment for this article.
Kate Madigan, director of the Michigan Climate Action Network, said environmental groups also are in talks with the Whitmer administration, voicing their concerns about the tunnel, Line 5 and the need for transparency.
Should that not be enough, Madigan said, “there’s talk of legal action.” She declined to say anything further on that.
Much of the conversation around Line 5 has centered on the threat of an oil spill in the Straits and how that would harm the economy, environment and enjoyment of the Great Lakes.
That point was raised by environmentalists in the conference Wednesday, but the main focus was on the tunnel’s incompatibility with the growing demand for renewable energy and the fight against climate change.
Duffy declined to answer questions on long-term oil and gas needs, saying he wouldn’t speculate on energy demands in the future. He added that Enbridge has invested in solar, geothermal and other renewable energy options and is committed to “being part of the transition to a lower-carbon economy.”
He declined to say whether Enbridge has considered renewable energy options or other non-tunnel options to meet the natural gas demand in the Upper Peninsula.
Whitmer has made her stance on climate change known. Not even a month into office, she entered Michigan into the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of governors from 20 other states that have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions consistent with Paris Climate Agreement goals.
When the Department of Environmental Quality was restructured earlier this year, an Office of Climate and Energy was created to disseminate progressive climate policy across state government.
But opposition to climate change doesn’t sync up with consideration of a long-term oil and gas tunnel, said Lisa Wozniak, executive director of Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
“Allowing Enbridge to continue this conversation, allowing the continuation of a conversation about an oil tunnel in our state to pump more oil for decades longer is the opposite, exact opposite, of the climate solutions Michigan needs to be prioritizing,” Wozniak said.
McKibben predicted that by 2028 the impacts of climate change will be “ramping up quickly” and that long-term projects to facilitate fossil fuel use will be deemed “anachronistic," or belonging to an earlier time, in the wake of greater attempts to reverse the course of climate change by shifting to renewable energy.
He likened the Line 5 tunnel project to a person who decided to breed horses for transportation at the dawn of the automobile.
Under former Gov. Rick Snyder’s deal with Enbridge, the Canadian Energy company would have paid an estimated $300 to $500 million to construct the tunnel about 100 feet beneath the Straits.
After completion, Enbridge would then hand tunnel ownership over to the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority and be allowed to transport oil and gas through the tunnel for up to 99 years thereafter.
The deal was put on hold after the law creating the state oversight panel was deemed unconstitutional by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
