Energy distribution company Enbridge has filed a joint permit application with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The application was submitted on Wednesday.
If approved, the permit will remove one more hurdle to the company’s construction of its proposed $500 million Line 5 utility tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Construction would commence in 2021, and Enbridge estimates the tunnel will be operational sometime in 2024.
However, Oil & Water Don’t Mix (OWDM) – a coalition of 16 environmental groups, civic organizations and tribal interests – are beseeching a sympathetic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel to block the permitting process until Michigan has weathered fully the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both Whitmer and Nessel campaigned on their opposition to the Line 5 proposal during the 2016 election season. Numerous injunctions against the pipeline have been sought by Nessel since her inauguration, most recently in the Michigan Court of Claims this past October.
Although the attorney general lost that case, Nessel has appealed.
“First and foremost, when it comes to important policy decisions involving the Great Lakes and the fate of Line 5, citizens must be able to participate through robust public involvement. This is fundamental to our democracy,” Liz Kirkwood, executive director, For Love of Water (FLOW), said in an OWDM statement.
“During this unprecedented public health pandemic, Governor Whitmer could exercise her emergency authority to delay permitting as she has in other non-essential situations and maintain a fair and just public process,” she added.
The coalition also asserts current executive orders enacted by Whitmer thwart efforts to effectively review and comment on upcoming permit requests.
“Consistent with these actions, EGLE should consider delaying review for the Enbridge permit applications for the Straits of Mackinac Tunnel Project until it has been determined emergency and disaster conditions no longer exist and appropriate programs have been implemented to allow for full and proper public engagement, as required by law,” according to an OWDM letter sent to Whitmer on Wednesday.
“Our goal is to ensure that all Michigan citizens in every Michigan community that are interested in participating in the public comment process have ample opportunity to offer their views on the permit applications, including at public hearings and at public information meetings,” the group wrote.
The letter drew the ire of Jason Hayes, Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s director of environmental policy, for two reasons.
“First, the coalition’s letter engages in a shoddy and unprofessional attempt to smear the intentions of Enbridge and its employees when it accuses the company of ‘seeking to use a global pandemic to its advantage by avoiding rigorous review and meaningful public comment,’” Hayes told The Center Square.
“It is quite possible to request a reasonable COVID-19 related accommodation for public review and comment within the permitting process. There is no need to engage in this sort of inflammatory rhetoric,” he said. “Given the heightened anxiety and fear caused by the virus, accusations like this could lead to potentially dangerous reactions. The coalition should retract that claim and publish an immediate apology.”
“Second, the coalition’s demands to halt the permitting process will have the perhaps unintended effect of stalling the work to relocate the pipeline from the water of the Great Lakes to the tunnel,” Hayes continued.
“There is simply no escaping the fact that having the pipeline ensconced in a cement-lined tunnel, 100 feet below the surface of the water will provide far more environmental protection than forcing it to stay in the water,” Hayes said.
“If the coalition is serious about its concerns for water quality, moving the process forward to relocate the pipeline to the tunnel will meet that goal far more efficiently than using regulatory tactics to slow or halt the construction project,” he added.
For its part, Enbridge acknowledges the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan.
“[U]nder our agreements with the State of Michigan we are working under a set timeline with required deadlines for moving the tunnel project forward,” an Enbridge statement said. “We are following that timeline with this submission of our permit application.”
The statement continued: “Enbridge recognizes that this submittal is happening at a very challenging time as Michigan and the country continues to engage in the COVID-19 response.”
On Monday, Nessel penned a letter to Liesel Eichler Clark, EGLE director and chairperson of the Upper Peninsula Energy Task Force, in which she proposed several recommendations should the current Line 5 pipeline cease operations and the proposed pipeline tunnel project canceled. Among those recommendations are transporting fuels via tanker trucks and railroad cars.
“Throughout the past several months, we have been regularly communicating with state and federal agencies to ensure we remained aligned in terms of the timing of this application,” Enbridge asserted in its statement. “Their consultation in recent weeks has been helpful in making certain the application and the process met their requirements, expectations and capabilities.”
“The governor and attorney general are simply anti-fossil fuel,” H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow on economic policy and managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, told The Center Square.
“The existing pipeline has worked for more than 65 years without a problem, and Enbridge has a right and an obligation to remove and replace it,” Burnett continued. “By so doing, they’ll ensure the safety of Michigan residents and the environment at the same time.”
Burnett touted the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel as “posing no environmental hazard while at the same time good for the creation of sorely needed employment opportunities in Michigan.”
Burnett said pipelines are less dangerous, more economically viable and environmentally safer than shipping by truck or rail cars. “For one, pipelines don’t create air emissions,” he said.
“And, as well, pipelines spill far less than rail cars and trucks,” Burnett added. “But, what happens if a train carrying cars loaded with fuel suddenly derail?” he asked. “Now you’ve endangered whole towns full of innocent people,” he said.
Rich Studley is president and CEO of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which represents 5,000 businesses with collectively more than 1 million employees. The Chamber has been an outspoken advocate for the Line 5 tunnel.
Studley told The Center Square more than 300,000 Upper Peninsula residents would be harmed if the pipeline is shut down. “There are no practical, serious alternatives offered for Dana Nessel’s foolish wish to eliminate the pipeline,” he said, calling Nessel and Whitmer “political opportunists” for their attempts to stymie the pipeline’s progress.
“The real question to Dana Nessel is when will she stop wasting time and taxpayer money in her crusade against Enbridge,” Studley continued. “Is it better to shut down Line 5, which would require oil barges on the Great Lakes, an endless convoy of tanker trucks and rail cars transporting fuel?” he asked.
Studley noted the shortage of tanker trucks and drivers as well as his assessment the necessary rail capacity doesn’t currently exist to replace Line 5.
“Homeowners, industry and businesses all require safe and reliable energy, and the state could use the jobs building the pipeline would create,” he said, adding Enbridge would pay for the project without government financial assistance.
“The Great Lakes Tunnel Project unequivocally is the most practical, long-term solution to delivering a secure energy supply to the region while enhancing environmental safeguards in the Straits,” Amber Pastoor, Enbridge Tunnel Project Manager, said in a statement emailed to The Center Square.
“The existing Line 5 was designed to last and has served this region well for more than 60 years,” Pastoor continued. “With today’s technology, the Great Lakes Tunnel Project will help deliver an enhanced level of safe, reliable energy, along with measures to protect our waterways for generations.”
