SIGN THE PETITION
This is how we make our government accountable to the people. We'll deliver your signature to tell Gov. Whitmer the will of the people is to #ShutDownLine5
Building a tunnel for Enbridge Line 5 through the Straits of Mackinac is not a solution to protect the Great Lakes, 400 other water bodies, including Lake Michigan, or our dangerously overheating climate.
Sign to protect the Great Lakes from *another Line 5 oil spill
Dear Gov. Whitmer:
An oil tunnel through the public bottomlands of the Straits of Mackinac won’t protect the Great Lakes from a 645-mile long, 73-year-old Line 5 crude oil pipeline that has leaked at least 33 times into Michigan's environment. Even when its oil isn't spilling into the water, it adds to our climate crisis when burned by spilling carbon into the atmosphere every day. The time to end the threat of a catastrophic oil pipeline rupture is now. Instead of leaving a vulnerable and hazardous oil pipeline operating in the Mackinac Straits for years while trusting a dishonest Enbridge to protect the Great Lakes, I support your action to revoke the Line 5 easement and urge you to prevent an oil tunnel from being constructed.
* Yes, Enbridge Line 5 has already spilled 33 times and 1.1 million gallons.
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Governor Whitmer and Director Roos,
I AM OUTRAGED.
This week, climate-fueled wildfire smoke lay so thick over Michigan that the Mackinac Bridge vanished from its own webcam. These smoke summers are no longer rare. They are a trend, arriving harder each year, and they will keep coming until we stop feeding the fire. That is the emergency we actually live in. And in that same week, EGLE reissued a permit advancing a brand-new oil tunnel under the Great Lakes, over more than 70,000 public comments, dismissed in a single sentence.
Your own press release tells the real story: the original permit “expired earlier this year” because “construction has not yet begun.” Enbridge has held permission to build this tunnel since 2018 and has never started. The deal has no completion deadline; Enbridge’s board can defund it; Enbridge can cancel it at will. THE TUNNEL IS NOT A SAFETY PROJECT — it is the excuse that keeps a 73-year-old pipeline, already responsible for a million gallons leaked along its length, pumping oil across the lakebed of the Straits while a fifth of the planet’s fresh surface water sits above.
One EGLE decision remains: the NPDES permit, which would let Enbridge discharge millions of gallons of construction wastewater into Lake Michigan. Deny it. You have the record, the science, and 70,000 Michiganders behind you.
Governor Whitmer: You were elected promising to shut down Line 5. Every permit your agencies issue for the tunnel is a year added to the old pipes’ life. Direct your administration to STOP FACILITATING THE EXCUSE — and finish what you started.
So much for promises…