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Freighter Fails in Great Lakes Highlight Line 5 Risks
After the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Michiganders are not ruling out a similar tragedy in the Great Lakes. After obtaining a public records request from the U.S. Coast Guard, a new report in the Detroit News discovered that Great Lakes freighters lost control or power more than 200 times between 2012 and May 2022, and crashed with stationary objects more than 60 times over the same decade. While the News notes that a freighter crash similar to the Key Bridge tragedy is unlikely with the Mackinac Bridge, there is a profound risk of damaging Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.
Stick That in Your Pipeline and Smoke It!
Anybody who’s ever visited Michigan’s Great Lakes has been taken aback by their inspiring splendor and breath-taking beauty, laid out for all to see. What you don’t see, however, are Enbridge’s two aging pipelines, known as Line 5, that run under the Straits of Mackinac, the waterway that joins Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. And these old pipelines are not only hidden beneath this splendor and beauty, but they actually threaten to destroy it.