Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. must pay an Indigenous band in Wisconsin more than US$5 million in Line 5 profits and relocate the controversial cross-border pipeline within the next three years, a U.S. judge says. A rupture on territory that belongs to the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa would constitute a clear public nuisance under federal law, district court Judge William Conley said in a decision late Friday.
Line 5 transports crude oil through the heart of the Great Lakes, an invaluable cultural resource for residents and visitors to the region who benefit from the connection with the water and the land. The pipeline has already leaked 29 times, spilling over 4.5 million litres of oil and putting 84 percent of North America’s surface freshwater at risk. And yet, Canada continues to prioritize the ongoing operation of the pipeline over this critical global freshwater system.
The controversial Canada-U.S. oil and gas conduit known as Line 5 could be facing its toughest challenger yet: the very watershed the pipeline's detractors are trying to protect. Spring flooding has washed away significant portions of the riverbank where Line 5 intersects Wisconsin's Bad River, a meandering, 120-kilometre course through Indigenous territory that feeds Lake Superior and a complex network of ecologically delicate wetlands.
Enbridge Energy, the owner and operator of the Line 3 pipeline project in northern Minnesota, will pay more than $11 million after investigations identified water quality violations and three aquifer breaches related to the pipeline’s construction, state regulators said recently. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced the results from investigations of water quality violations and aquifer breaches related to the construction project. Combined with the previous DNR actions, and in partnership with Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the investigations have resulted in more than $11 million in payments, environmental projects, and financial assurances from Enbridge, according to the state agencies.
The proposed reroute is expected to cross nearly 200 bodies of water and temporarily affect 55 hectares of wetlands. Enbridge says the nearly 70-year-old pipeline is a vital link to fuel across the region. Wisconsin Public Radio reports that the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which represents 11 Ojibwe tribes, told the DNR in a Dec. 10 letter that the state’s review has significant gaps in information. The commission says it doesn’t have enough data on the effects an oil spill would have on downstream waters, including Lake Superior. They also say it doesn’t assess compliance with the Bad River tribe’s water quality standards or combined impacts of other projects.
A coalition of environmental activists called on President Joe Biden to weigh in on the ongoing fight to decommission Line 5, Canadian oil company Enbridge's aging oil and gas pipeline in Michigan's Great Lakes. The coalition, which includes groups like Clean Water Action, Oil and Water Don't Mix, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, and the National Wildlife Federation, says it delivered more than 33,000 petition signatures to U.S. Sen. Gary Peters requesting that he pass them on to Biden. The coalition says they also plan on delivering the signatures to U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and the White House.
Minnesota regulators have ordered Enbridge to pay more than $3 million US for allegedly violating state environmental law by piercing a groundwater aquifer during construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline replacement. The state Department of Natural Resources said Enbridge, while working near Clearbrook in January, dug too deeply into the ground and pierced an artesian aquifer, which resulted in a 90-million litres groundwater leak. "Enbridge's actions are a clear violation of state law, and also of the public trust," said Barb Naramore, DNR deputy commissioner. "That is why we are using all of the tools in our authority to address the situation."
An aging pipeline that carries oil along the bottom of the ecologically sensitive and turbulent Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet, is in such a state of disrepair it could burst at any moment and cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, environmentalists warn. Line 5, a 1,000-kilometre-long pipeline owned by Calgary-based Enbridge, carries up to 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids a day from Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ont., where it is shipped to other refineries in Ontario and Quebec.
Michigan’s demand that Enbridge close its 68-year-old oil pipeline (Line 5) across the Straits of Mackinac joining lakes Michigan and Huron did not come out of nowhere. It is essentially the fifth “wave” of opposition to Canadian oil pipelines that suddenly erupted in 2010. The first four cases, of course, were TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, then Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, followed by TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline and Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain Expansion pipeline.
