The seven-year fight to keep oil and natural gas flowing under a major Michigan waterway may be headed to the state Supreme Court.
Enbridge, a large Canadian energy pipeline company won a major legal victory last week when the Michigan Court of Appeals refused to block a permit to construct a 30-inch diameter oil pipeline beneath the lakebed in the Straits of Mackinac.
The straits are the narrow point in northern Michigan where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan come together.
Plans call for the building of a new concrete-lined tunnel that will encase a four-mile stretch of Line 5—a 645-mile-long metal pipeline carrying light crude oil and natural gas liquids from Wisconsin, through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and across the Lower Peninsula—to refineries and distribution centers in Sarnia, Ontario….