By Julie Geisenger
Hundreds descended upon Little Bear East Arena in St. Ignace on Sept. 8 to give public comment on the proposed Line 5 Tunnel. The hearing is part of the Army Corps Environmental Impact Statement development process. The Army Corps will ultimately decide whether to issue the permit Enbridge needs to move forward with this dangerous project. A virtual meeting will be held October 6 or written comments can be submitted.
Tessine Murji, a Sierra Club organizer and Canadian citizen, traveled to the meeting to provide the following testimony: “The Army Corps of Engineers must take into account the full impact of the Canadian government's interpretation of the 1977 Transit Pipeline Treaty when considering this tunnel project. If the Line 5 shutdown order is not enforced because of the 1977 treaty, it will give Enbridge carte blanche to ignore the United States federal government’s sovereign ability to enforce environmental laws regulating oil infrastructure operating in the United States.”
There is still time to make your voice heard! Sign up here for the Oct. 6 virtual meeting on Zoom or submit your written comments here.
In other Line 5 news, the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of the Chippewa Indians recently won a legal battle against Enbridge, which has been operating illegally on 12 miles of the Bad River Reservation in Wisconsin after the pipeline company’s easement expired in 2013. In a very strong ruling in favor of the tribe, the federal judge ruled Enbridge’s failure to remove their pipeline constitutes trespass on tribal lands and they must pay damages to the tribe but came short of ordering Line 5 to shut down at this time.