Line 5 activists urge Canadian Consul official to ‘avoid disaster’
An international coalition of organizers met with an official at the Canadian Consulate to advocate for the shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline, May 14, 2024 | Courtesy photo
An international delegation delivered a letter Tuesday to a Canadian consular official outlining what it says is a “looming threat” of a spill by the Line 5 pipeline.
The letter was signed by groups including the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Michigan Anishinaabek Caucus and The Great Lakes Water Protector Network, and was given to Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Service Consul Steve Neves at the Canadian consulate in Detroit. In it, they urged the retraction of a 1977 transit treaty that enables the pipeline’s owner, Canadian-based Enbridge, to operate Line 5 in the Great Lakes watershed.
Among the ongoing complaints is that Enbridge is illegally operating Line 5 on tribal lands.
“It’s hypocritical and irrelevant for the Canadian government to invoke the 1977 treaty while ignoring the long standing treaties they have with First Nations, ignoring the sovereignty of the Bad River Band and the 12 tribes of Michigan. We need Canada to do the right thing and stand back from this fight,” said Andrea Pierce, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians citizen, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition & Michigan Anishinaabek Caucus.
The Line 5 pipeline, transports up to 540,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids per day, stretches from Northwest Wisconsin through Michigan and into Sarnia, Ontario, including 12 parcels of land owned partially or wholly by the Bad River Band.
In 2022, Wisconsin’s Western District Court ruled that the Canadian company was indeed trespassing and ordered Enbridge to pay more than $5 million in damages and shut down the 12-mile section of pipeline running through the tribe’s sovereign territory by 2026.
A request to immediately shut down the pipeline was subsequently denied, and both sides are appealing.
Enbridge maintains it is not trespassing, with spokesperson Ryan Duffy previously telling the Michigan Advance that the company’s 1992 easement agreement permit allows the company to remain on the reservation through 2043.
The company’s attorneys also argue that the order to shutdown the pipeline violates the 1977 Transit Pipelines Treaty, which ensures crude oil can flow between the U.S. and Canada, provided the pipelines involved comply with various rules and regulations.
However, the groups say the dangers inherent in a spill in the Great Lakes, which contains more than a fifth of the world’s surface freshwater, is too great to be ignored.
Valerie Jean Blakely is the communications director of The People’s Water Board Coalition.
“Cross-border activists are uniting to stop Enbridge from continuing to use our waterways as a sacrifice zone for the corporate greed of a Canadian oil company. It is our duty to protect the Great Lakes,” she said.
They also contend that Line 5 represents a toxic danger to the air, pointing to a proposal by the Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s refinery in southwest Detroit to be allowed to run at full capacity, which the groups claim will refine the oil flowing through Line 5.
“This is a textbook case of environmental racism. Indigenous people’s treaty rights are being ignored and their lifeways are in peril,” said Andrew Kaplowitz, with Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice. “And people in Detroit, the blackest city in America, have our air and water poisoned when tar sands oil is processed literally in our backyards.”
A public hearing by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) on the proposed permit is scheduled for May 22 in Detroit.
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