July 1, 2025
Kacey Cook, Flow Staff Attorney
Enbridge’s appeal to the US Supreme Court serves to prolong the operation of the company’s pipeline through the heart of the Great Lakes–allowing Enbridge to continue to profit, while our shared freshwater resources remain at risk.
Under Michigan public trust law, the State has the paramount responsibility, and power, to protect the Great Lakes and their bottomlands from occupation by private projects that present unacceptable risks to these shared public resources.
It is difficult to imagine a project that presents greater risks than Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline–pumping approximately 23-million gallons of oil through the Straits of Mackinac every day with the ever-present potential for a catastrophic oil spill.
To protect the Great Lakes from these risks, in 2019, Attorney General Nessel sought a court order to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 and, in 2020, Governor Whitmer issued a Notice of Revocation and Termination of the project’s easement across the Straits, citing both violations of the public trust doctrine and Enbridge’s “longstanding, persistent, and incurable violations of the Easement’s conditions and standard of due care.”
Today’s news is the most recent development in Enbridge’s years-long campaign of defiance against the State’s enforcement of Michigan law. Flow Water Advocates will continue to monitor all developments in the federal courts, and we stand with the State of Michigan in its efforts to ensure that this important case enforcing Michigan’s public trust doctrine is properly heard in State court.
Flow is also closely following Michigan agencies’ careful review of Enbridge’s state permit applications for the proposed tunnel project and applaud the State’s continued insistence that Enbridge provide all of the information required for a proper review of the risks associated with the unprecedented megaproject.
