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Opponents of Enbridge’s (NYSE:ENB) plan to reroute its Line 5 pipeline around the Bad River tribe’s reservation said Wednesday they will submit more than 150K comments to federal regulators against the project.
Environmentalists and tribal leaders are urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny a Clean Water Act permit for Enbridge’s (ENB) $450M plan to build a new 30-inch segment of Line 5 that would run 41 miles around the reservation and involves more than 200 waterway crossings.
“This reroute is not a solution,” says an attorney at Earthjustice who is representing the Bad River Band, according to S&P Global. “In fact, it really extends the dangers of the pipeline and increases the threat of a devastating oil spill.”
Enbridge (ENB) says Line 5 is safe after spending billions of dollars upgrading technology and protocols since the 2010 spill that released more than 1.2M gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River.
A shutdown would risk the closure of refineries in Ohio and propane fractionators in Wisconsin and Michigan, the company told S&P Global.
The pipeline is the main source of propane to Ontario, supplying two-thirds of the province’s oil needs and half the feedstock needed for its refineries use to make gasoline, while also supplying 55% of Michigan’s oil demand with light crude oil, light synthetic crude and natural gas liquids that are refined into propane.
