Stop Pipelines
Stop Pipelines
We're building a future without fossil fuels where our communities can breathe clean air, drink clean water, and thrive in a stable climate. To do that, we must stop the expansion of fracked methane gas and dirty oil -- which can't get anywhere without pipelines. If polluting oil and gas companies are successful in building and expanding dangerous leak-prone pipelines, it will further lock us into a future powered by fossil fuels instead of the clean energy future that is readily available now.
Activists speak out against Line 5 prior to a hearing from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. | Photo by Devon Young Cupery
Line 5
Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline transports 22 million gallons of crude oil and methane gas liquids across 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin through Michigan and back to Canada crossing hundreds of waterways, including miles of pipeline in the Great Lakes. Every. Single. Day. In the last 50 years, the pipeline has had dozens of spills, releasing more than 1.1 million gallons of toxic oil into the environment. The current administration has the opportunity to order Line 5 to be shut down, but instead they are considering permitting the reroute of the pipeline in Wisconsin, allowing its continued operation into the future. Right now, we have a real chance to reverse course and shut down this environmental and health disaster.
The Line 5 pipeline transports 22 million gallons of fracked gas and crude oil, some of which comes from the Alberta tar sands in Canada, through the heart of the Great Lakes every single day.
1.1M
400
rivers endangered by Line 5
Line 5 has a long history of unleashing environmental damage
Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline transports 22 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids across 645 miles of countryside< every, single day. Originally built in 1953, this aging line — which has long outlived its anticipated lifespan — has significantly deteriorated over the course of the last several decades and poses catastrophic risks to the neighboring farmland, pristine natural areas, valuable freshwater sources (including 400 rivers, streams, and wetlands), and tribal lands that it cuts through. Read more.
Alli Moran from Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe speaks at a June 11 rally in DC to Shutdown the Dakota Access Pipeline. | Photo by Shaughn Cooper courtesy of Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)
Dakota Access Pipeline
In 2016, the Obama administration halted this risky oil pipeline project running from the oilfields of North Dakota across multiple midwest states. Unfortunately, the following year Trump reversed that decision and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) was constructed. Advocates haven't given up -- the current administration could reverse course and shutdown this pipeline. Last Fall, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Sierra Club, and partners submitted 100,000 comments demanding that the Biden Administration shut down this pipeline. As soon as this fall, the Army Corps will determine its fate. In the summer of 2024, hundreds rallied in front of the White House in support of clean water, Tribal sovereignty, and to call on the Biden Administration to stop this risky project. DAPL has no part in our clean energy future.
Victory!
Sierra Club Wins Legal Challenge Against Regional Energy Access Expansion project to expand the Transco pipeline
In July, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit vacated, or invalidated, a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that allowed the construction of the Regional Energy Access Expansion project to expand the Transco pipeline to bring additional fracked gas from Pennsylvania to, primarily, New Jersey and Maryland.
Mountain Valley Pipeline
Clean water advocates protest the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline. | Photo by Caroline Hansley-Mace
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is another unwanted 303-mile gaspipeline that cuts across Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. It poses dangers to water, wildlife, forests, and local communities. Unfortunately, in June 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted approval to Equitrans Midstream Corp. to start operation of this dirty project, moving up to two billion cubic feet of gas per day, posing an existential risk to communities in its path and our climate. This is a slap in the face to those who have fought tirelessly over the last decade to protect their land and water. Our fight here is not over. We are still pushing to stop approvals to continue a gas buildout with the proposed Southgate Extension of the MVP pipeline system and the Transco Southeast Supply Enhancement Project in the same region.
Project Maple
Rally in Hartford, CT against Project Maple
Enbridge, the same massive multi-national corporation behind Line 5, wants to expand an existing 1,100-mile-long gas pipeline system, which runs from New Jersey through New York and into Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Motivated by profit, Enbridge is actively greenwashing this harmful project by claiming that gas is a clean and reliable energy source. The affected states have renewable energy mandates, and are fighting hard to ensure this pipeline expansion project does not move forward.
