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Add your name to these public comments to be submitted to Michigan state agencies by signing this petition.

PLEASE NOTE! The State of Michigan has closed the comment period. You may still sign the petition here, but the State of Michigan will not recieve your comment.

OWDMTake Action Now

Last June, the preliminary Line 5 Alternatives Study was released, and more than 23,000 people submitted their comment calling for the shutdown of Line 5 as the only alternative that will truly protect the Great Lakes from an oil spill. The revised and final Alternatives Study has just been released, which has triggered a second comment period that is now open.

Prevent a Catastrophic Great Lakes Oil Spill

The deadline for public comments is December 22, 2017, so please sign on and submit your comment today via this online form. Let's prevent a devastating oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac.

To the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Michigan Agency for Energy, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Governor, Michigan Attorney General, and Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board:

I am writing to submit my official comment in response to the State of Michigan’s Line 5 final alternatives analysis dated October 26 and released on November 20. I am deeply disappointed in this final analysis. A draft alternatives report released in June was riddled with errors and omissions, and the final report contains most of the same failures.

This report fails to meet its overall purpose of “providing the State of Michigan and other interested parties with an independent, comprehensive analysis of alternatives to the existing Straits Pipelines, and the extent to which each alternative promotes the public health, safety, and welfare and protects the public trust resources of the Great Lakes.”

It lacks credibility because its author is Dynamic Risk, a firm with ties to Enbridge, the Canadian energy transport company that owns Line 5. Even worse, it absurdly underestimates the impact of a spill and ignores a viable alternative to Line 5 – use of existing infrastructure. An independent expert review in December 2015 documented the practicality of this alternative.

Decommissioning Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac is the only alternative that will prevent an oil spill with catastrophic consequences for the Great Lakes and the State of Michigan. Moreover, this final alternative report affirms that decommissioning is a feasible option with zero risks to the Great Lakes and minimal economic impacts to Michigan customers (e.g., two cents more at the gas pump and roughly 10 to 25 cents more for propane in the Upper Peninsula). 
 
It is time for the state to reject the flawed study, exercise its affirmative legal duty as public trustee of the Great Lakes and bottomlands, and shut down Line 5. The state should use that authority to revoke the 1953 easement agreement that Enbridge has consistently violated.

The risk of a spill is too great to allow Line 5 to continue to operate in the Great Lakes. Our state government should not put the Great Lakes, our economy, health, drinking water, fisheries, and way of life at risk from a catastrophic oil spill any longer. In fact, on November 16, the Coast Guard Coast commandant testified again to Congress that his agency is not prepared to clean up a large-scale pipeline oil spill in the Great Lakes.

I urge you to act as public trustees of our waters and bottomlands, enforce the easement in light of Enbridge’s ongoing violations, and begin the process of decommissioning Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac to protect the Great Lakes from a catastrophic oil spill. The State of Michigan has a legal duty to take this enforcement action. Enbridge’s ongoing violations cannot be remedied. It is time for the state to act decisively and with urgency.

Specifically, the report on alternatives to Line 5 in the Mackinac Straits:

  1. Fails to follow the recommendations and standards outlined in the Michigan Petroleum Pipeline Task Force Report, which resulted from a process created by the governor and co-chaired by the attorney general, and therefore cannot be used by the State of Michigan “in making decisions about the future of the Straits Pipelines.”
  2. Neglects to provide the state with an independent, fair analysis of the alternatives to Line 5 as required by the Task Force Report. This final report remains biased toward allowing Line 5 to continue to operate and/or allowing Enbridge to build new oil infrastructure in the Straits of Mackinac and further expand its operations. That bias grows out of past, and potentially future, business relationships between Enbridge and the report’s authors.
  3. Fails to analyze existing pipeline infrastructure as an alternative to Line 5 in the Straits, which the state required Dynamic Risk to analyze, and leaving it out conflicts with Task Force recommendation 3 (b). It is unacceptable that the contractor eliminated this alternative without any analysis. The 1953 easement granted with strict conditions by the state to Enbridge does not guarantee transport of 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and natural gas liquids. In fact, the 1953 MPSC Order states 300,000 bpd, which means Enbridge is currently operating Line 5 at 80 percent over design capacity. 
  4. Fails to analyze new evidence disclosed by Enbridge affecting the pipeline’s integrity, including external corrosion, 48 bare metal spots caused by the installation of screw anchors, compromised cathodic protection, and historic excessive pipeline spans greater than the 75-feet limit (including a 286-foot span that was unsupported for years), as required by the legal operating agreement with the State of Michigan. Dynamic Risk’s rationale, in part, is that "it would be inappropriate to speculate on any of the above aspects of the coating condition."
  5. Fails to consider tribal sovereign treaty rights and feedback on the basis that Dynamic Risk was not a party to tribal and state consultations, which is an unacceptable dismissal of input by a key stakeholder. 
  6. Grossly underestimates the total economic spill costs at between $147 million and $310 million, when Enbridge’s cleanup costs of its 2010 Line 6B pipeline oil spill along a 40-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River cost more than $1.2 billion.
  7. Overestimates an impact to propane supply, greatly exceeding what independent experts have determined would be necessary to provide the Upper Peninsula’s Rapid River facility with an alternative supply. The flawed report finds that up to 35 railcars per week or 15 truckloads per day would be necessary, while another study found it would take only one railcar or 3 - 4 truckloads per day to replace the Line 5 propane supply to the U.P.
  8. Continues to show an unfair bias towards building a tunneled pipeline in the Mackinac Straits. The report estimates a much lower cost for a tunnel than other estimates for this type of infrastructure; it fails to consider the risk of a spill to the Great Lakes, rivers and streams from other portions of the 64-year-old pipeline if the Straits portion were rebuilt. Dynamic Risk prefers new pipelines, which was evident when the firm aggressively promoted building a tunnel in its proposal to do this report, and its analysis is deeply flawed.

 

5,363 COMMENTS
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Showing 3503 reactions

  • Tom Teachout
    signed 2017-12-22 23:59:16 -0500
    Quit playing Russian Roulette with the Straits of Mackinac and the rest of the Great Lakes! Shut down Line 5!
  • Regina Chaltry
    signed via 2017-12-22 23:59:05 -0500
    Please shut down line 5 and decommissioned this route. Fossil.fuels are fast becoming a way of the past. Let it go. Please do not risk so much on something so unnecessary.
  • LuAnne Minette
    signed 2017-12-22 23:47:41 -0500
    WATER IS LIFE!SHUT DOWN LINE 5!WHY WAIT ANY LONGER ?YOU HAVE A CHOICE,MAKE THE RIGHT ONE FOR THE ENVIROMENT ,TODAY!

    DECOMMISSION LINE 5
  • Villabeth Taylor
    signed 2017-12-22 23:28:13 -0500
  • Janeen Docsa
    signed via 2017-12-22 23:18:17 -0500
    We must protect the Great Lakes! The lakes are an amazing resource and we can’t afford the risk. I live in Kalamazoo and the Kalamazoo River is living proof that a spill CAN happen. An ounce prevention is well worth the tons of attempt to cure. PLEASE SHUT DOWN LINE 5!
  • Robert Allen
    signed 2017-12-22 23:11:11 -0500
  • Carmien Goggin
    signed 2017-12-22 23:10:43 -0500
    Line 5 should be shut down. It is unsafe to have it running under the waters of our great lakes.
  • John Kehoe
    signed 2017-12-22 23:04:13 -0500
    The ? isn’t if, it’s when, Line 5 will break and foul the already, seriously, beleaguered Great Lakes. Are we incapable of learning from the past? What are we leaving for the generations who follow us, it’s time to grow up and face reality, you can’t drink oil and it isn’t that much fun to swim in. JK
  • Earl Bash
    signed 2017-12-22 23:00:10 -0500
    Base on The catastrophic results if the pipe line is compromised and considering what Michigan gets from the line. It’s time to shut line 5 down.


    Enbridge is certainly taking advantage of the situation now strictly for economic reasons with little regard for people who live in northern Michgan.


    Old contract – not suited for today.
  • Joan Christensen
    signed via 2017-12-22 22:33:54 -0500
  • Mollie Singh
    signed via 2017-12-22 22:32:35 -0500
    This is too dangerous to proceed without more assurance these old pipelines are safe. Please don’t put our wonderful fresh water Lakes in jeopardy.
  • Nancy Witter
    signed 2017-12-22 22:27:03 -0500
    The State of Michigan has a legal obligation to decommission Line 5. Enbridge has violated the easement agreement and put the Great Lakes at risk from a catastrophic oil spill.
  • Joan Scott
    signed 2017-12-22 22:25:03 -0500
    SHUTDOWN LINE 5— IMMEDIATELY!! If an oil spill occurred, Michigan would never be the same again!!! Never. Why on earth would we be so risky and take such a gamble to allow this?!! The Great Lakes are a precious fresh water gem on this planet, a natural resource that we must do everything in our power to protect. It is unconscionable that Line 5 was ever allowed to be built in the first place!! Shameful if you don’t shut down this aging, deteriorating pipeline and redirect the oil IMMEDIATELY!! …Attorney General Bill Schuette and Governor Rick Snyder, the citizen of Michigan are watching what you do on the matter.
  • Donald Garlit
    signed 2017-12-22 22:08:57 -0500
    The line is old and the risk is great. It needs to be shut down now rather than risk damage to the environment.
  • Ellen Smith
    signed 2017-12-22 22:03:01 -0500
    There is simply no justification for allowing the Line 5 CANADIAN PIPIELINE to endanger the sensitive envrironmental sites along the Straits, and risk economic and human impacts to the people of Michigan. There is no longer any doubt that Enbridge cannot and should not be trusted to maintain the pipeline; the only questions left is, should we put any more trust in the politicians and bureaucrats in Lansing to put US – THE PEOPLE THEY SERVE AND THE STATE AND COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY LIVE AND WHO PAY THEM TO CARRY OUT THESE IMPORTANT DUTIES – ahead of powerful corporate interests, and for only a negligible benefit (i.e., propane gas). THE PIPELINE NEEDS TO BE SHUT DOWN – Not in 10 years, or 5 years, or when the inevitable breach happens. Now – before that happens, Don’t repeat the mistakes of the Flint Water Crisis. Thank you, for making it possible for the public to present their comments.
  • Shaina Oliver
    signed via 2017-12-22 22:00:55 -0500
    Honor the law of the lands. U.s. Constitution states, under article 6 clause 2, "treaties are supreme law of the lands ". Article 26 under the international law, indigenous people of the lands hold the treaty rights of the lands. Governments state or local cannot make or take rights away. Also under amendment 10 states, governments cannot hold power over the people. Ignorance of the law is No Excuse.
  • Brad Busch
    signed 2017-12-22 21:58:33 -0500
    The Great Lakes are a limited resource and mus be protected at all cost!Shut down Line 5 once and Forever. It poses a Catastrophic Danger to the Great lakes!
  • Rebecca Hall
    signed via 2017-12-22 21:45:02 -0500
    Water is Life! Remove this dangerous pipeline!
  • Jandy Sprouse
    signed 2017-12-22 21:40:11 -0500
    This pipeline will fail. There’s no reason to risk the health of our lakes for this petroleum company.
  • Lexi Brewer
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-12-22 21:36:26 -0500
    JOIN ME and tell the State of Michigan the only acceptable way to protect the Great Lakes is to SHUTDOWN LINE 5.
  • Lexi Brewer
    @lexbrewer tweeted link to this page. 2017-12-22 21:36:24 -0500
    JOIN ME and tell the State of Michigan the only acceptable way to protect the Great Lakes is to SHUTDOWN LINE 5. http://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/submit_your_line_5_comment?recruiter_id=56162
  • Cynthia Lynne
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-12-22 21:35:52 -0500
    JOIN ME and tell the State of Michigan the only acceptable way to protect the Great Lakes is to SHUTDOWN LINE 5.
  • Alexandria Brewer
    signed 2017-12-22 21:35:40 -0500
  • cynthia lynne
    signed 2017-12-22 21:35:38 -0500
    SHUT IT DOWN! The lakes are too important to take any more risks. Just look at the new XL pipeline..,..already leaking!
  • Karrie Foster
    signed 2017-12-22 21:26:21 -0500
  • Paul Hannuksela
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-12-22 21:21:32 -0500
    JOIN ME and tell the State of Michigan the only acceptable way to protect the Great Lakes is to SHUTDOWN LINE 5.
  • Paul Hannuksela
    signed 2017-12-22 21:21:13 -0500
    Shut Line 5 down, or take personal financial responsibility when it leaks.
  • Katie Gleason
    signed via 2017-12-22 21:11:39 -0500
  • Joanne Tollison
    signed 2017-12-22 21:01:49 -0500
    Countless communities, jobs and wildlife will be impacted by an oil spill. It would be devastating both to Canada and the US. The Great Lakes are the international water supply for both of us.
  • Claire Livezey
    signed 2017-12-22 20:49:02 -0500
    This is far too great of a risk to the Great Lakes economy and ecosystem. Absolutely unacceptable that it was put in at all. SHUT IT DOWN.

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