What’s Line 5?
Despite serious consequences to climate and environmental justice, tribal sovereignty, water, health and community, Enbridge – a Canadian oil giant – has continued to put corporate profits above our safety by pursuing patchwork options to keep the aging Line 5 oil pipeline running. We’re building a movement to demand action.
Photo of the aging Line 5 oil pipeline on the bottom of the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac. (National Wildlife Federation)Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline transports 22 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids across 645 miles of countryside every, single day — from Superior, Wisconsin through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, under the Straits of Mackinac, and down to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario. Originally built in 1953, this pipeline — which has long outlived its anticipated lifespan — has significantly deteriorated over the course of the last several decades and poses catastrophic risks to the neighbors, valuable freshwater sources (including 400 rivers, streams, and wetlands), and tribal lands that it cuts through.
Map by Carl SackIt’s not a matter of if the Line 5 pipeline spills, but when. Enbridge’s track record is tainted with numerous oil spill disasters, including one of the largest inland oil spills in US history in 2010 in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. Recently, in November 2024, another one of Enbridge’s pipelines ruptured and spilled over 70,000 gallons of oil in Jefferson County, Wisconsin – and the public didn’t learn until a month later.
Communities, Tribes, and Governments have demanded that Enbridge safely decommission their aging oil pipeline in order to keep our communities and water safe from Line 5 spill. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, in 2020, ordered Enbridge to shut down Line 5 under the public trust doctrine and revoked the Line 5 easement due to repeated violations. But Enbridge thinks they’re above the law and is currently operating in defiance of the order. The Bad River Band in Wisconsin has been outspoken that they do not want Line 5 running through their reservation. A U.S. District Court ruled in Wisconsin in June 2023 and found Line 5 to be a public nuisance and in trespass on the Bad River Band reservation. The court ordered the pipeline shut down if Enbridge does not remove it by June 2026– but once again, Enbridge thinks they’re above the law and appealed that decision.
Rather than comply with the demands of the Bad River Band and Michigan, Enbridge is proposing to build a tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac to skirt the law and the Michigan Governor's order, and build a reroute around the Bad River Reservation. But this reroute doesn’t solve the problem– the reroute would still put the Band’s watershed in jeopardy.
We all need clean, safe water. We all know why healthy water is important for our everyday life. That’s why we’re fighting to protect it. Line 5 threatens the safety of the Great Lakes and the drinking water of 40 million people. Line 5 should be safely decommissioned and we’ll continue working together to make it happen.
