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.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer abandoned a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at shutting down an oil pipeline that runs through part of the Great Lakes but said the state would continue pursuing a separate case with the same goal. Whitmer's legal maneuver followed a federal judge's decision earlier this month to retain jurisdiction over a suit brought by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. after the state revoked an easement allowing Line 5 to cross the Straits of Mackinac.
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.
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.
