The construction of an underground tunnel for an aging oil pipeline, which extends along the Great Lakes canal, can destroy the wetlands and harm the habitats of the bats, but would eliminate the chances of the anchor of the boat to tear the line.
The analysis moves the housing step closer to the approval of the tunnel for line 5 in the Makinak Strait. The tunnel was offered in 2018 at a price of $ 500 million, but was sunk by legal challenges. The corps quickly followed the project in April after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in January to identify energy projects for accelerated extraordinary permit.
A final environmental assessment is expected by autumn, with a permit decision to follow this year later. Initially, the agency plans to issue a permit solution in early 2026.
With this permission, ENBRIDGE will only need permission from the Ministry of Environment in Michigan, Great Lakes and Energy before it can start constructing the tunnel. However, this is far from a given.
Environmentalists are pressing the state to refuse the permission. Meanwhile, Michigan Prosecutor General Dana Nesel and governor Gretchen Whitmer are trying to win court decisions that would force Enbridge to remove the existing pipeline from the straits forever.
Construction may have large short -term, long -term impacts
The analysis notes that the tunnel will eliminate the risk of anchor a boat to tear the pipeline and cause spill, a key concern for environmentalists. But construction will have extensive effects on everything from relaxation to the wild.
Many of the impacts, such as noise, vistas, darkened by 400 feet (121 meters) cranes, construction lights, deterioration for stars in Headlands International Dark Sky Park and vibrations that would violate the water wildlife will end when the work is completed.
Other effects would last longer, including the loss of wetlands and vegetation on both sides of the Strait, which connects Lake Haron and Lake Michigan, and the loss of nearly 300 trees, which the northern bat of a long ear and three-color bat is used for spots. Assessment and excavation can also disturb or destroy archeological sites.
The tunnel control machine can cause vibrations that can displace the geology of the area. The soil in the construction zone can become contaminated and nearly 200 truck trips every day during the six -year construction period will worsen the roads, the analysis has found. Mixing gas with water penetration into the tunnel may lead to an explosion, but the analysis notes that Enbridge plans to install fans to properly ventilate the tunnel during excavations.
Enbridge has promised to comply with all safety standards, plant vegetation, where possible, and contains erosion, the analysis notes. The company also stated that it would try to limit the strongest work to the daytime hours as far as possible and compensate for the harm of wetlands and protected species by buying loans through mitigation banks. This money can then be used to fund refunds in other areas.
“Our goal is to have the smallest possible environmental footprint,” ENBRIDGE officials said in a statement.
The Sierra club issued a statement on Friday, saying that the tunnel remains an “existential threat”.
“The chances of spilling oil in the Great Lakes – our most valuable freshwater resource – Skiroki, if this tunnel was built in the Strait,” says the group. “We can’t drink oil. We can’t fish or swim in oil.”
Julie Gudwin, a senior Earthjustice lawyer, a group for environmental legislation that opposes the project, said the body did not consider the spill impact, which could still happen on both sides of the Strait or stop the oil flow through the Greater Lakes.
“My key appearances are that the Army Corps has put in the operation of Enbridge and the President Trump’s fossil fuel program,” she said.
The tunnel will protect part of line 5 passing through the Strait
ENBRIDGE uses the Line 5 pipeline to transport raw oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Ontario, from 1953, approximately 4 miles (6 kilometers) of the pipeline at the bottom of the Makinak Strait.
Concerns about the destruction of the pipeline for aging and causing a potentially catastrophic spill in the straits have been built over the last decade. These fears intensified in 2018 when anchored the line.
Enbridge claims that the line remains structurally strong, but in 2018 he made a deal with the administration of the then Michigan Rick Snyder, who calls on the company to replace the part of the strait of the line with a new section, which will be closed in a protected underground tunnel.
Enbridge and environmentalists Spar in court battles
Environmentalists, indigenous American tribes and Democrats have been fighting in court for years to stop the tunnel and force Enbridge to remove the existing pipeline from the Strait. So far, they have had little success.
The Michigan Court of Appeal in February upheld the permits of the State Commission for Public Service for the tunnel. Nesl filed a case in 2019, which wanted to cancel an easement that allows line 5 to move through the straits. This case is still waiting. Whitmer overturned the easement in 2020, but Embridge challenged this decision and a federal Court of Appeal in April ruled that the case could continue.
Another legal battle over line 5 in Wisconsin
About 12 miles (19 kilometers) from line 5 passes through the bad riverbena of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation in northern Wisconsin. This tribe filed a case in 2019 to force Enbridge to remove the reservation line, arguing that it was predisposed to spill and that the facilities that allow him to work in the reservation expired in 2013.
ENBRIDGE has offered 41 miles (66 kilometers) redirect around the reservation. The tribe filed a case that wanted to cancel the state permits for the construction of the project and joined several other groups to challenge the permits through the state -challenged process.