Take Action
Add your name to this petition by filling in the form to the right.
Help us by are calling on our state leaders to enforce the easement granted to Enbridge for their Line 5 oil pipelines to be allowed to operate in the Straits of Mackinac.
Take action to protect the Great Lakes from a disastrous oil spill.
Michigan Governor Snyder and Attorney General Schuette:
As you know, the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge pumps almost 23 million gallons of oil every day through its Line 5 pipeline, from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario.
Enbridge is currently operating in violation of the 1953 easement agreement with the State of Michigan to operate Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. Turbulent currents and winter conditions make the Straits the worst possible location for a spill. Required supports for Line 5 have washed out for the second time in two years. Independent experts have identified at least seven state and federal violations of this legal agreement with the state.
Since 1988, this 64-year-old pipeline has failed at least fifteen times, dumping about 260,000 gallons of oil on land and in marshes. This pipeline crosses along the bottom of the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac, and through many sensitive inland lakes, rivers, and wetlands.
This pipeline poses an unacceptable risk to our water, ecosystems, health, and economy.
I urge you to act as legal public trustees of our waters and bottomlands to enforce the 1953 Easement and immediately shut down Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac to protect the Great Lakes from a catastrophic oil spill.
Showing 8252 reactions
Original petition statement:
Governor Snyder and Attorney General Schuette:
“You have the political and moral authority to protect the Great Lakes and all natural life (including local communities and businesses, the “Pure Michigan” economy, commercial shipping, a vital fishery, and the drinking water supply for countless communities in Michigan) that depend on the Great Lakes for life itself.
Our state is allowing the Line 5 pipelines to operate despite scientific professional concerns and questions about whether Enbridge, the pipelines’ owner, is complying with the terms of its 1953 easement or laws to protect the Great Lakes.
Shut down the oil flowing through the Enbridge pipelines in the Mackinac Straits while the State and its Pipeline Safety Advisory Board oversee an independent risk assessment and alternatives analysis that should lead to decommissioning the Line(s) 5 and preventing a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes.
Pipelines don’t belong in the Great Lakes. Attorney General Schuette said, “Certainly, the Straits Pipelines would not be built today. Current technology has given us the ability to KNOW that an oil spill in the Great Lakes is not containable and “harmless” (the catastrophe enhanced by ice cover).
The oil flowing through Line 5 pipelines is one genie that can be put back in the bottle if immediate action is taken by you.
As a lifelong resident of the State of Michigan, I urge you to take swift action and use your authority to shut down Line 5 before this winter. Do not wait for a spill before taking action. A spill would be a bitter pill knowing that you had the positive solution and did nothing.
Do what you know to be the right thing."
Thank you. Jill Lapham