A new White Paper from property owners along the upper Great Lakes requests action from federal and state agencies to reduce the risk of a failure of the Enbridge Line 5 pipelines under the Straits of Mackinac.
Download the Executive Summary / Congressional Handout
All indications are that governmental agencies have abrogated their mission responsibilities to protect Straits property owners from harm caused by the rupture of the Enbridge Line 5 crude oil pipeline.
The Straits of Mackinac Alliance is a non-profit charitable organization of individuals and businesses who reside in coastal communities on the upper Great Lakes.
The Line 5 submerged pipelines are now radically different than their original engineering design through the addition of more than 200 screw anchor supports, lifting approximately 60% of the exposed length of the lines above the bottom. The addition of screw anchor supports has made the lines subject to new failure mechanisms, including anchor strikes and extreme currents that could cause a rupture during severe weather events.
The transformed structure has never been subject to an impartial engineering analysis of new failure mechanisms, which governments should have insisted upon before approving permits for Enbridge’s actions.
Specifically, the Straits of Mackinac Alliance wants federal and state agencies to work collaboratively to:
- Require the implementation of a year-round current monitoring system in the Straits;
- Conduct an independent and impartial engineering analysis of the risk of continued operation of the transformed pipelines;
- Conduct an independent external inspection of the transformed structure in 2024.
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