LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Public touch upon Enbridge Power’s Line 5 tunnel challenge within the Straits of Mackinac is now open and can run till Aug 29. The Michigan Division of Surroundings, Nice Lakes, and Power made the announcement Thursday afternoon, with the EGLE beginning full overview of the challenge Wednesday.
Enbridge is at present planning to assemble a 3.4-mile-long tunnel beneath Lake Michigan, changing and relocating the Line 5 pipelines crossing the Straits of Mackinac and encasing them within the tunnel bored beneath the lakebed. The total 634-mile-long pipeline runs via the Nice Lakes from Wisconsin to Michigan and ends in Ontario.
An above-ground part of Enbridge’s Line 5 on the Mackinaw Metropolis, Mich., pump station is seen, Oct. 7, 2016. (AP Picture/John Flesher, File)
Enbridge says the tunnel will assist defend the pipeline higher within the wake of rising issues relating to the growing old pipeline’s structural stability. Line 5 has been in operation since 1953, and in 2017, Enbridge officers got here ahead and revealed that engineers had identified about gaps within the pipeline’s coating within the Straits of Mackinac, sparking fears of a probably catastrophic oil spill within the Nice Lakes.
These fears have been exacerbated in 2018, when a ship anchor broken a part of the road. At the moment, the corporate reached a cope with then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration to construct a protecting tunnel across the line.
The challenge has been controversial ever since, with some state leaders saying the chance of a spill into the straits from the tunnel is “virtually zero,” and that the challenge will create jobs and profit the state’s economic system.
Nevertheless, environmentalists and Michigan Native tribes have beforehand requested the state’s Supreme Court docket to overturn the allow, arguing that the corporate’s historical past of “catastrophic spills, environmental destruction, and a complete disregard for tribal sovereignty” makes the challenge too dangerous for the Nice Lakes.
Public feedback have been opened as a result of “substantial public interest in the application,” based on the EGLE.
The EGLE will maintain two digital conferences through the public discover interval, an informational session on Aug. 12 and a proper public listening to on Aug. 19, the place feedback shall be acquired for the document. Data on these conferences may be discovered right here.
Extra feedback shall be accepted via Aug 29. Feedback may be made at this hyperlink.
2025-07-16-NoticeDownload
