Authors: Tessine Murji, Conservation Organizer and Hannah Flath, Communications Coordinator
In late 2020, Indigenous organizers, environmental advocates, and Water Protectors won the unimaginable. We won the first-ever shut down order on an operating pipeline. After ten years of organizing and fighting Enbridge, the biggest crude oil company in the world, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer notified Enbridge it must permanently stop operating the Line 5 pipeline within 180 days due to the risk the pipeline poses to the Great Lakes.
After that victory, we thought that that’s where the fight ended. We had won!
And yet, it’s 2023, and Line 5 is still operating. Enbridge has refused to comply with the shut down order, and Canadian and US governmental leaders have refused to enforce the order. Their hesitancy to act is contrary to biodiversity and climate goals recently agreed upon by both countries.
In December, representatives from the US and Canada participated in the 15th United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. Governments from around the world, including Canada, agreed to adopt the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which pledges to protect 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030. While the US is not a signatory to the Global Biodiversity Framework, President Biden has established the US’s own goal to conserve 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030. If the US and Canada are serious about protecting lands and waters and bolstering biodiversity, we must get serious about shutting down Line 5.
Last month, Sierra Club Illinois joined partners, Indigenous leaders, and members of the Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada Chapters of Sierra Club at COP15 to bring that message to the international stage. Throughout the thirteen-day conference, we raised awareness about the threat Enbridge’s fossil fuel infrastructure poses to biodiversity, climate, and the health of the Great Lakes and called for the shutdown order to be enforced once and for all.
On the first weekend of the conference, we braved frigid temperatures alongside more than 67 organizations at the March for Biodiversity and Human Rights and led a Teach-In to educate COP attendees and community members about the dangers of Enbridge’s fossil fuel infrastructure.
Terminate it! Reject Line 5!” at the March for Biodiversity and Human Rights
Photo Credit: Rebecca Kemble
The following weekend, we participated in a press conference to call on Canadian leaders to stop defending Line 5 and stand in solidarity with Indigenous communities who have repeatedly decried the pipeline. In addition, we participated in a panel, "Water Protectors Standing Up for the Great Lakes", where biologists, Water Protectors, and environmental advocates outlined the extraordinary danger the pipeline poses and called on the US and Canada to finally shut down Line 5.
participates in a press conference with partners and activists at COP15.
The risks associated with the pipeline cannot be understated. Line 5 transports oil from Alberta to Québec through the midwestern United States. The 69-year-old pipeline has spilled over 1 million gallons of oil into the Great Lakes in its lifetime, threatening vital ecosystems. It runs through the Straits of Mackinac between Lakes Michigan and Huron, which scientists have called one of the “most ecologically sensitive” parts of the Great Lakes. An oil spill in these waters would threaten a fifth of the world’s fresh water, drinking water for 40 million people, Indigenous treaty rights, and billions in trade. Crude oil giant Enbridge continues to operate as though we are not in a climate crisis, and world leaders sit silent while Enbridge defies the law and ignores litigation from Indigenous Tribes.
Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline is impacting the entire Great Lakes region—across borders, throughout vital watersheds, and through Indigenous territory. Their overreach has already caused catastrophe, and their continued use of the pipeline will only bring further harm. Luckily, the movement against Line 5 is far-reaching, too.
Indigenous leaders, Water Protectors, and environmental advocates spoke up at COP15 last month to make it clear—Enbridge’s hypocrisy and lies may be loud, but we can be louder. We will continue to demand that President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau honor Indigenous treaties and the monumental shutdown order to protect the Great Lakes. We will not back down in the fight to shut down Line 5.