PRESS RELEASE: SEPTEMBER 9, 2025
Download the written comments to EGLE (PDF)
Traverse City, Mich. – On August 29, 2025, Flow Water Advocates, a Great Lakes water protection organization, together with the Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation, submitted written comments on Enbridge’s application for a Water Resources Permit for its proposed Line 5 tunnel project through the Straits of Mackinac. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is reviewing the application for compliance under the Michigan Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act (NREPA), Parts 303 and 325.
Flow’s comments demand that EGLE’s review consider the entire project, and detail the many adverse environmental impacts that will or are likely to result from the project’s approval, including:
- a projected six years of construction traffic and noise, light, and air pollution;
- the destruction of precious wetland ecosystems;
- climate impacts from the tunnel’s construction and the products it will transport for the duration of a 99-year lease, and
- the potential impacts resulting from a project failure, including a catastrophic oil spill.
Flow’s comments also highlight the expert reports and Enbridge’s own expert testimony that have confirmed available alternatives for transporting the products currently flowing through Line 5.
Because the proposed tunnel will have significant–and potentially catastrophic–impacts on Michigan’s public trust waters and natural resources, and because these impacts can be avoided through available alternatives, EGLE must deny the permit under Michigan’s controlling environmental laws and regulations.
Michiganders are counting on the State to uphold its responsibility to protect the public trust rights of current and future generations who depend on the Great Lakes for their drinking water, subsistence, and way of life.
An additional public comment period for Enbridge’s application to EGLE for a wastewater discharge permit under NREPA, Part 31, is anticipated in the coming months.
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Flow Water Advocates is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Traverse City, Michigan. Our mission is to ensure the waters of the Great Lakes Basin are healthy, public, and protected for all. With a staff of legal and policy experts, writers, and community builders, Flow is a trusted resource for Great Lakes advocates. We help communities, businesses, agencies, and governments make informed policy decisions and protect public trust rights to water. Learn more at www.FlowWaterAdvocates.org.
Shut Down Line Five and save our Great Lakes
I’ve been pushing for years. Spoke rapt Landing when Lee Chatfield proposed laws to protect
Should there be a break the damage would be far worse than Kalamazoo leak.
When I was at a meeting an insurance broker who covered big problems noted. The owners of the pipeline could not afford to fix
If you drive you carry insurance, if a tire blows, you are covered
Shut it down!
Line five only serves those with full pockets and none of us living in the Great Lakes.
Avoid the rhetoric and do the right thing. Shut down the chance for your following generations to suffer catastrophic consequences.
Shut down line Five.
Regarding the (below) quotes, could you please summarize what alternative(s) FLOW is proposing to Line 5?
“…… avoided through available alternatives, EGLE must deny the permit under Michigan’s controlling environmental laws and regulations”.
“Enbridge’s own expert testimony that have confirmed available alternatives for transporting the products currently flowing through Line 5”.
Thank you for promoting awareness, Jama