Tribal leaders, clean water advocates rally in Lansing as Line 5 fight intensifies

Tribal citizens and environmental advocates rallied at the Michigan Capitol against Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline, which carries up to 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily through the Straits of Mackinac. Speakers, including Little Traverse Bay Bands Chairperson Winnay Wemigwase, cited University of Michigan research calling the straits the worst possible site for a Great Lakes spill, with over 700 miles of shoreline at risk.

Enbridge is building a tunnel meant to reduce spill risk, but advocates say it would blast through sacred sites and require exhuming ancestral remains; Enbridge says surveys found no confirmed burial grounds in the construction area. Michigan's environmental agency, in reissuing the tunnel permit, itself stated the project 'will have adverse effects on known historic and cultural resources, including their destruction and/or removal.'

Separately, Enbridge has released 1,900 gallons of drilling fluid during a reroute around the Bad River Band's Wisconsin reservation, where a federal judge found the company trespassing, and confirmed a natural gas leak this week after a truck struck a transmission line at a Line 5 valve site.

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