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great lakes
PFAS 'Ubiquitous' in Water, Atmosphere in Great Lakes Basin
"We need to take a broad approach to control sources that release PFAS into the atmosphere and into bodies of water," said one researcher, "since they eventually all end up in the lakes."
May 18, 2024
A first-of-its-kind study published this week shows that levels of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are now so ubiquitous in the environment that they have begun building up in the Great Lakes Basin after entering it through rainwater and the air, contaminating 95% of the United States' fresh surface water supply.
Researchers at Indiana University, Bloomington and Environment and Climate Change Canada published the study Thursday, revealing that "background levels" of PFAS, also called "forever chemicals," are so high that atmospheric counts were consistent throughout the basin.
"The PFAS in rain could be carried from local sources, or have traveled long distances from other regions. Regardless, it is a major source of pollution that contributes to the lakes' levels," reported The Guardian on Saturday.
The levels of PFAS in precipitation did not correlate with whether or not an area in the Great Lakes Basin was heavily industrialized, lead author Chunjie Xia, a postdoctoral associate at Indiana University, told The Hill.
"The levels in precipitation don't depend on the population," said Xia. "They are similar in Chicago, which is heavily populated, and at Eagle Harbor, Michigan, where there's maybe 500 people living in a 25-kilometer radius."
"That tells us the levels are ubiquitous," he said. "This is the first time we've seen that. We've never seen that for other pollutants before."
Within the basin, however, levels of PFAS were higher near urban areas.
Twenty percent of the world's freshwater is held in the Great Lakes Basin, while 10% of the U.S. population and 35% of Canadians live in the region.
In 2023, Duke University and the Environmental Working Group analyzed fish samples collected from the Environmental Protection Agency's monitoring program for the Great Lakes, and found that eating just one locally caught freshwater fish could be the equivalent of drinking PFAS-contaminated water for a month.
Forever chemicals have earned their nickname because they do not naturally break down and can continuously remain in and move through the environment. PFAS are used by dozens of industries to make products heat-, water-, and stain-resistant.
European lawmakers have proposed a ban that could go into effect as early as 2026, but Reutersreported Wednesday that the law could include exemptions for certain industries.
Last month, the Biden administration finalized a rule setting limits on PFAS in drinking water.
"We need to take a broad approach to control sources that release PFAS into the atmosphere and into bodies of water," Marta Venier, a co-author of the new study, toldThe Guardian, "since they eventually all end up in the lakes."
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'Disastrous': Michigan Regulators Approve Enbridge Line 5 Expansion
"Today's decision is another notch in a long history of ignoring the rights of tribal nations," said one Indigenous leader.
Dec 01, 2023
Days after climate advocates applauded Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's signing of a package of clean energy bills that one campaigner said would "translate into better air, water, and health for everyone," state regulators took several steps back from a sustainable future as they approved a key permit for Enbridge's Line 5 expansion project beneath the Great Lakes.
In a 2-0 vote with one member abstaining, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) approved siting for the project, granting Canadian oil firm Enbridge permission to build a concrete tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac—which connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron—to house a four-mile section of its 645-mile petroleum pipeline.
The company can't break ground on the project without approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which isn't expected to announce its decision until 2026, but Indigenous tribes and advocacy groups that have fought for years to stop the pipeline from being built expressed outrage that the commission approved the permit despite well-documented objections.
All federally recognized tribes in Michigan have passed resolutions opposing Line 5, which safety experts have warned puts the Great Lakes at risk for a massive explosion and oil spill.
"Today's decision is another notch in a long history of ignoring the rights of tribal nations," said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community. "We must act now to protect the peoples of the Great Lakes from an oil spill, to lead our communities out of the fossil fuel era, and to preserve the shared lands and waters in Michigan for all of us."
Tribes have said the project would violate their treaty rights and that Enbridge has not proven it can operate the tunnel safely. The company's Line 6B oil spill in 2010 contaminated nearly 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River.
"Disappointment isn't a big enough word," Rebecca Liebing, attorney for Bay Mills, told Michigan Bridge after the MPSC vote was announced. "There's no ambiguity regarding how the tribes feel about this matter... We're not done fighting."
The lakes hold 84% of North America's surface freshwater, and the Line 5 expansion would be the largest underwater hazardous liquids tunnel ever completed, said the coalition Oil and Water Don't Mix (OWDM).
"With this action, the Michigan Public Service Commission is putting Michigan in uncharted, dangerous territory while ignoring warnings by independent industry experts who testified during the MPSC's proceedings," said Sean McBrearty, a campaign coordinator for OWDM. "Never before has an oil tunnel that also carries other hazardous liquids been built in one of the most ecologically sensitive spots on Earth."
McBrearty pointed out that Enbridge already operates other oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac, and said there is "an open question whether Enbridge intends to build the tunnel or is simply using the project as a diversion and delay from shutting down the existing twin oil pipelines."
"Moreover, the Line 5 tunnel will worsen the impacts of the climate crisis by adding 27 million metric tons of polluting and climate altering carbon into the atmosphere, equivalent to 10 coal-fired power plants," said McBrearty, calling on President Joe Biden to revoke the presidential permit for Line 5.
Whitmer campaigned on closing down Line 5, but Enbridge has claimed the governor has no authority to shut down its pipelines because it runs between the U.S. and Canada and is subject to federal regulations.
A spokesperson for the governor toldMichigan Bridge that Whitmer is reviewing the MPSC's decision and that her goal "has always been getting the pipelines out of the water as quickly as possible."
Christopher Clark, senior attorney for Earthjustice, which represented Bay Mills as it presented its case objecting to Line 5 to the MPSC, said the commission ignored "the concerns of tribal communities in favor of the profit of a fossil fuel company."
"The evidence before the commission demonstrated that the proposed tunnel would put the Great Lakes region at serious risk and profoundly endanger the identity and lifeways of the Bay Mills Indian Community, a sovereign tribal nation whose relationship to these waters preexists the United States," said Clark. "We will use every open avenue to shut down Line 5 in order to avert an environmental catastrophe and slow the unthinkable impacts of climate change.”Keep ReadingShow Less
Citing 'Imminent Danger,' Indigenous Women Demand Biden Shut Down Line 5 Pipeline
"Every single one of us has agency and a responsibility to take action, honor the treaties, and protect Mother Earth," asserted one Oneida Nation leader. "It is the time to be brave and courageous."
May 25, 2023
Native American women leaders and more than 150 allied advocacy groups from across the United States on Thursday implored the Biden administration to decommission a Canadian-owned oil and gas pipeline that, according to one group, has spilled more than a million gallons of fossil fuels in over 30 incidents during the past 55 years.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, and other administration officials, leaders of the Indigenous Women's Treaty Alliance—which is facilitated by the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)—called on the president to "immediately revoke the presidential permit for Canada's deteriorating Enbridge Line 5 pipeline before environmental calamity strikes with oil spills into the Great Lakes."
"We write to you as Indigenous grandmothers, mothers, aunties, daughters, sisters, and relatives. We are of the Great Lakes, where our sacred food manoomin (wild rice) grows on water," the letter states. "We hold a responsibility to protect our water, our ecosystems, and our cultural lifeways for the next seven generations."
\u201c\ud83d\udce2 Today, Indigenous Women's Treaty Alliance, WECAN & 150+ groups are sending an urgent message to @POTUS @JoeBiden to respect Indigenous rights, protect the Great Lakes, and #ShutDownLine5 before it is too late!\n\nLearn more \ud83d\udc49https://t.co/ifb6MwCdfa\u201d— WECAN, International (@WECAN, International) 1685020571
Manoomin "is fundamental to the physical, spiritual, and cultural survival of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa," the letter's signers explained. "Our sovereignty and treaty-protected rights to hunt, fish, and gather food and medicine are all at risk. Diverse fish populations spawn in the Bad River Watershed. These fish are economically and culturally vital to the Bad River Band, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the entire region."
Treaty rights and manoomin were at the center of Indigenous-led opposition to replacing Line 3, another Enbridge pipeline running from Canada through the Great Lakes region. Despite fierce resistance from Indigenous, climate, and environmental activists, the Biden administration declined to block Line 3's replacement, which went online in October 2021.
"An oil disaster would permanently devastate the exceptional ecology of the watershed, the wild rice, and fish populations," the new letter continued. "At the Bad River Reservation, recent flooding has eroded one riverbank to within 11 feet or less of Line 5's centerline, creating an immediate threat."
\u201cWe've filed final arguments with the Bay Mills Indian Community over the proposed Line 5 tunnel project. Enbridge wants to dig a pipeline tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. This untested project could lead to an explosion & oil in the Great Lakes. https://t.co/ngY5H38Jkc\u201d— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) 1684782060
Last September, U.S. District Judge William Conley found that Enbridge was trespassing on lands belonging to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northwestern Wisconsin, and profiting off Line 5 at the tribe's expense. However, Conley said earlier this month that since the tribe cannot prove that an "emergency" exists along the flooded riverbank, he is unlikely to order Enbridge to shut down the pipeline.
"This is a nearly 70-year-old pipeline running almost two decades past its engineered lifespan," the new letter stresses. "Erosion from receding waters or the next rainfall could cause a 'guillotine rupture'—a vertical break causing oil to gush from both sides, poisoning the Bad River watershed and Lake Superior."
As the Oil & Water Don't Mix coalition explained:
Nearly 23 million gallons of oil daily flow through two aging pipelines in the heart of the Great Lakes, just 1.5 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge. Constructed during the Eisenhower administration in 1953, the two 20-inch-in-diameter [pipelines]... lie exposed at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac—a busy shipping channel...
Line 5 has spilled 33 times and at least 1.1 million gallons along its length since 1968.
The pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac cross one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world. The Great Lakes are home to 21% of the world's fresh surface water. The pristine straits area supports bountiful fisheries, provides drinking water to thousands of people, and anchors a thriving tourism industry with historic and beautiful Mackinac Island right in the center.
In November 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer moved to revoke Line 5's easement, with a shutdown order coming the following May. However, Enbridge ignored Whitmer's order and kept running the pipeline.
\u201c#Line5 is only a few yards away from causing catastrophe in #Wisconsin Bad River and @LakeSuperior. #ShutDownLine5 for the ecosystem and all who rely on it! https://t.co/C0GErPs3xB\u201d— Oil & Water Don't Mix (@Oil & Water Don't Mix) 1684358132
"Revoking the presidential permit and forcing Enbridge to cease Line 5's operations is consistent with your administration's directives for climate, nation-to-nation relations, and environmental justice. It is also consistent with the knowledge we share that the Great Lakes—one-fifth of the world's surface freshwater at a time of growing water scarcity—are invaluable treasures that must be protected, regardless of political pressures, special interests, and short-term profits," the new letter argues.
"Water is life," the signers added. "We are... calling on you to protect essential water, as well as wild rice, fisheries, and cultural survival."
Jannan J. Cornstalk, a citizen of Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and director of the Water is Life Festival, said in a statement Thursday that "our very lifeways and cultures hang in the balance as Line 5 continues to operate illegally in Indigenous territories and water."
"These are our lifeways—when that water is healthy enough that rice is growing—that not only benefits our communities, but that benefits everybody up and downstream," Cornstalk added. "Allowing Line 5 to continue to operate is cultural genocide, and the Biden administration must listen and shut down Line 5. That water is our relative, and we will do whatever it takes to protect our water, our sacred relative."
\u201cStanding Up for Water, Land and Climate: Meet 10 Indigenous Women Fighting the Line 5 Pipeline - Ms. Magazine https://t.co/kOKlE6w5JM\u201d— Kelly Sheehan (@Kelly Sheehan) 1665619048
Aurora Conley of the Bad River Ojibwe and Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance said: "I am calling on the Biden administration to shut down Line 5 immediately. Our territories and water are in imminent danger, and we do not want to see irreversible damage to our land, water, and wild rice."
"We do not want our lifeways destroyed," Conley added. "The Ojibwe people are here in Bad River because of the wild rice. A rupture from this oil spill will irreversibly harm the Great Lakes and wild rice beds. This is unacceptable. We will not stand for this. Shut down Line 5 now."
Carrie Chesnik of the Oneida Nation Wisconsin and founder of the Treaty Land Trust, asserted that "we have an opportunity here to shut down the Line 5 pipeline, and protect what we all hold dear."
"We all have the responsibility and agency to act in a good way, to care for the land and waters," she continued. "What our communities have known for a long time is that the water is hurting, Mother Earth is hurting, and pretty soon we won't have clean water for our kids, for future generations."
"As a Haudenosunee woman, an auntie, daughter, and sister, I have an inherent responsibility to the water and our children," Chesnik added. "Every single one of us has agency and a responsibility to take action, honor the treaties, and protect Mother Earth. It is the time to be brave and courageous."
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