FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 31, 2026
Michigan Supreme Court upholds the public’s rights to the Great Lakes, orders new review of Line 5 tunnel.
Traverse City, Mich., July 31, 2026 — The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Michigan regulators failed to properly weigh the Great Lakes’ public trust protections and environmental impacts before approving Enbridge Energy’s proposed Line 5 tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The Court overturned the Michigan Public Service Commission’s (“MPSC”) approval of the project and sent the case back to the agency for further review of public trust and environmental impacts — a major victory for Flow Water Advocates (“Flow”) and its Tribal and environmental co-appellants.
The ruling resolved the consolidated appeals brought by Flow, four federally recognized Tribes – the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, Bay Mills Indian Community, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi – and the Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Michigan Climate Action Network, all of whom challenged the MPSC’s approval of the tunnel.
The High Court found that the Court of Appeals erred in this case “by applying a deferential standard of review to the MPSC’s decision, and the MPSC erred by (1) failing to consider whether the tunnel project will factually and proximately cause the extension of Line 5’s operational life, potentially resulting in additional environmental harm; (2) comparing alternatives in an inconsistent manner; and (3) failing to consider the project’s impact on public trust resources.” The Court rejected the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the MPSC lacked the authority to apply a common-law public trust analysis, stating, “We agree with FLOW and hold that MEPA requires separate consideration of harms to public trust resources.”
Lead attorney, Riyaz Kanji, remarked, “Today the Michigan Supreme Court vindicated the rights of every Michigander to the protection of the Great Lakes. It reaffirmed that the invaluable waters of the Great Lakes and submerged lands beneath them are held by the state for the benefit of the people, and that the public’s rights in those vital waters and lands cannot be given away to private interests like Enbridge without careful consideration of the environmental impacts and alternatives. The High Court made clear that regulators and state agencies, like the MPSC, which has authority over the location and operation of pipelines and other utilities, cannot avoid this fundamental duty to the public in their permit decisions.”
Flow’s Executive Director, Liz Kirkwood, said, “This decision of the Michigan Supreme Court builds on a long lineage of public trust case law and affirms that the public trust doctrine and the Michigan Environmental Protection Act (“MEPA”) are alive and well in Michigan. Today’s historic ruling cements the importance of the MEPA and the common-law public trust doctrine in agency permitting decisions affecting the waters and natural resources of the people of Michigan. The MPSC cannot greenlight the tunnel project until the agency actually determines its impact on the public’s rights to the Great Lakes waters and the lands beneath them — and weighs that harm against the alternatives, as the law requires.”
Flow is represented in this case by its legal team and co-counsel, Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C. and Olson & Howard, P.C.
