Participant seen holding a sign at the protest. Climate activists with Stop the Money Pipeline held a rally in midtown Manhattan first at BlackRocks HQ and then march to JP Morgan Chase HQ, -two of the worlds biggest funders of climate destruction in their opinion- to urge the two companies to end their support for the dangerous proposed Line 3 pipeline project, and stop funding fossil fuels and forest destruction. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Enbridge's Line 5 Needs to Be Shut Down to Protect the Great Lakes
Line 5, increasingly a threat to the Great Lakes and having repeatedly violated its Michigan issued permit, needs to be closed before it ruptures to the undying regret of both Canada and the United States.
I was dismayed to read Canada's Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan pronounce his government's "non-negotiable" opposition to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's order to close the damaged and corroding 68-year-old Enbridge Pipeline Line 5, which runs under the Straits of Mackinac.
This pipeline poses an imminent threat to the shared waters that millions of Canadians and Americans depend upon for life, agriculture, commerce and recreation.
Currently operating in violation of a critical permit required by the State of Michigan, this pipeline poses an imminent threat to the shared waters that millions of Canadians and Americans depend upon for life, agriculture, commerce and recreation--and which both countries are committed to protect under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
I was honoured to serve for nine years as the U.S. section chair of the International Joint Commission (IJC), a Canadian-American organization created by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to advise our respective governments on these shared resources. Having no association with IJC since retiring in 2019, the views expressed here are mine alone.
I am speaking out because the danger of a breach of this age-compromised pipeline spanning a major shipping lane in the world's largest freshwater body increases with every passing day.
For more than a century, the IJC has counselled both federal governments on the management and protection of our shared waters. With three Canadian and three U.S. commissioners, no IJC decision is made without binational agreement. IJC's most important contributions to Canada and the United States are invariably based on science and thoughtful negotiations. These recommendations have frequently been informed by provincial, state, First Nations, Metis and municipal governments--each of which maintains its respective governing authority to protect the waters.
It is in this tradition and in our nations' shared interest in the long-term health of the Great Lakes that one would expect binational acknowledgement of these established facts:
- Examination of Pipeline 5 in the Straits of Mackinac shows thinning of the pipeline walls and a history of breaks in the lake bed anchors essential to keeping the pipeline tightly fixed to the lake bottom.
- A current jury-rigged system of bottomland attachments allows this bent and corroded pipeline to flex and float in ways it was never designed to tolerate -- stresses that intensify the risk of a breach.
- Violations of Enbridge's pipeline permit, issued by the State of Michigan in 1953, include a history of nonreported damage from ships dragging anchors through the Straits of Mackinac.
- Enbridge's poor record on pipeline breaks includes the massive 2010 Line 6B rupture, which spilled almost a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, a tributary of Lake Michigan. Separately, Line 5 breaks outside its passage through the Straits have already spilled 1.1 million gallons.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just two days to go in our Spring Campaign, we're falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
I was dismayed to read Canada's Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan pronounce his government's "non-negotiable" opposition to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's order to close the damaged and corroding 68-year-old Enbridge Pipeline Line 5, which runs under the Straits of Mackinac.
This pipeline poses an imminent threat to the shared waters that millions of Canadians and Americans depend upon for life, agriculture, commerce and recreation.
Currently operating in violation of a critical permit required by the State of Michigan, this pipeline poses an imminent threat to the shared waters that millions of Canadians and Americans depend upon for life, agriculture, commerce and recreation--and which both countries are committed to protect under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
I was honoured to serve for nine years as the U.S. section chair of the International Joint Commission (IJC), a Canadian-American organization created by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to advise our respective governments on these shared resources. Having no association with IJC since retiring in 2019, the views expressed here are mine alone.
I am speaking out because the danger of a breach of this age-compromised pipeline spanning a major shipping lane in the world's largest freshwater body increases with every passing day.
For more than a century, the IJC has counselled both federal governments on the management and protection of our shared waters. With three Canadian and three U.S. commissioners, no IJC decision is made without binational agreement. IJC's most important contributions to Canada and the United States are invariably based on science and thoughtful negotiations. These recommendations have frequently been informed by provincial, state, First Nations, Metis and municipal governments--each of which maintains its respective governing authority to protect the waters.
It is in this tradition and in our nations' shared interest in the long-term health of the Great Lakes that one would expect binational acknowledgement of these established facts:
- Examination of Pipeline 5 in the Straits of Mackinac shows thinning of the pipeline walls and a history of breaks in the lake bed anchors essential to keeping the pipeline tightly fixed to the lake bottom.
- A current jury-rigged system of bottomland attachments allows this bent and corroded pipeline to flex and float in ways it was never designed to tolerate -- stresses that intensify the risk of a breach.
- Violations of Enbridge's pipeline permit, issued by the State of Michigan in 1953, include a history of nonreported damage from ships dragging anchors through the Straits of Mackinac.
- Enbridge's poor record on pipeline breaks includes the massive 2010 Line 6B rupture, which spilled almost a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, a tributary of Lake Michigan. Separately, Line 5 breaks outside its passage through the Straits have already spilled 1.1 million gallons.
I was dismayed to read Canada's Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan pronounce his government's "non-negotiable" opposition to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's order to close the damaged and corroding 68-year-old Enbridge Pipeline Line 5, which runs under the Straits of Mackinac.
This pipeline poses an imminent threat to the shared waters that millions of Canadians and Americans depend upon for life, agriculture, commerce and recreation.
Currently operating in violation of a critical permit required by the State of Michigan, this pipeline poses an imminent threat to the shared waters that millions of Canadians and Americans depend upon for life, agriculture, commerce and recreation--and which both countries are committed to protect under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
I was honoured to serve for nine years as the U.S. section chair of the International Joint Commission (IJC), a Canadian-American organization created by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to advise our respective governments on these shared resources. Having no association with IJC since retiring in 2019, the views expressed here are mine alone.
I am speaking out because the danger of a breach of this age-compromised pipeline spanning a major shipping lane in the world's largest freshwater body increases with every passing day.
For more than a century, the IJC has counselled both federal governments on the management and protection of our shared waters. With three Canadian and three U.S. commissioners, no IJC decision is made without binational agreement. IJC's most important contributions to Canada and the United States are invariably based on science and thoughtful negotiations. These recommendations have frequently been informed by provincial, state, First Nations, Metis and municipal governments--each of which maintains its respective governing authority to protect the waters.
It is in this tradition and in our nations' shared interest in the long-term health of the Great Lakes that one would expect binational acknowledgement of these established facts:
- Examination of Pipeline 5 in the Straits of Mackinac shows thinning of the pipeline walls and a history of breaks in the lake bed anchors essential to keeping the pipeline tightly fixed to the lake bottom.
- A current jury-rigged system of bottomland attachments allows this bent and corroded pipeline to flex and float in ways it was never designed to tolerate -- stresses that intensify the risk of a breach.
- Violations of Enbridge's pipeline permit, issued by the State of Michigan in 1953, include a history of nonreported damage from ships dragging anchors through the Straits of Mackinac.
- Enbridge's poor record on pipeline breaks includes the massive 2010 Line 6B rupture, which spilled almost a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, a tributary of Lake Michigan. Separately, Line 5 breaks outside its passage through the Straits have already spilled 1.1 million gallons.