Petition to Enforce the Easement

Enbridge cannot be trusted, look at their past record starting with the Kalamazoo River spill, and it is still not cleaned up !

There is no good reason to expose the Straights Of Mackinaw to the increasing potential of an oil spill !

We love sailing the pristine waters of northern Lake Michigan. Help protect it for future generations!!!

I feel like this should be common sense.

protect what we love. fulfill your legal obligation to protect the great lakes. there is a world full of grandchildren depending on you to RISE UP.

For the well-being of future generations as well as for ourselves, we need to emphasize and incentivize conservation of energy. Sacrificing our water for the business of fossil fuels would indeed be a disastrous deal.

Casey Kreutzberg

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.


I was in attendance at the MPSAB meeting on March 13, 2017. I was struck by the narrative of the Enbridge presenter which included claims that the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, running under the Straits of Mackinaw, is as “good as the day it was installed” and that it could be maintained to be a safe and effective way of transporting oil “indefinitely”. This claim is astounding, it defies logic and science and is patently impossible.


It is sickening to think that this is even a discussion up for debate. This task force process appears only a device to prolong the benefit of corporate interests and to delay action that is the only economically logical and environmentally responsible response to this particular example of antiquated infrastructure and energy policy.


Do the right thing. Do the economically responsible thing. Do the intelligent thing. Do the moral thing. Do what the people want and need over corporate interests. If you learned anything from past spills, such as in Kalamazoo and the Gulf of Mexico, know that the wrong decision here will put 20% of the world’s fresh water at risk. This is not something that should be the right of any single governmental agency or office. And certainly, not the right of corporate interests.


You have a responsibility to the local communities that will bear the heaviest burden when the line ruptures (make no mistake, it WILL rupture). You have a responsibility to the state of Michigan as well as other states that share Great Lakes shoreline and an international responsibility to our neighbors to the north. And down the road, a global responsibility. Stop this unnecessary flow of fossil fuels. Even Enbridge knows it will need to move to sustainable energy sources and infrastructure for its future growth and to satisfy investor expectations on returns. The company is already making some investments in alternative energy which demonstrate this knowledge. Help them make the move. Deny them the use of this line.

Hasn’t anything been learned from the “Flint situation”? So much better and cheaper to make the hard right decision than to drift along with the easy wrong. Play the long game, for my grandkids s sake!

Not Worth The Risk