The construction of an underground tunnel for an enbridge oil pipe that extends through a channel of the great lakes could destroy the wetlands and damage the bats of bats, but would eliminate the possibilities of a boat anchor to break the line and cause a catastrophic spill, said the body of the US Army engineers. Analysis of long -awaited drafts of the environmental impacts of the proposed project.
The analysis moves the body one step closer to passing the tunnel for line 5 in the Mackinac Strait. The tunnel was proposed in 2018 at a cost of $ 500 million, but has been bogged down for legal challenges. The body accelerated the project In April, after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in January to identify energy projects for accelerated emergency permits.
Autumn a final environmental assessment is expected, with a permissions decision that follows at the end of this year. Initially, the agency planned to issue a permits decision in early 2026.
With that permission in the hand, in Bridge would only need permission from the Department of the Environment of Michigan, large lakes and energy before he could start building the tunnel. However, that is far from being a fact.
Environmentalists have been pressing the State to deny permission. Meanwhile, Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, and Governor Grertchen Whitmer are trying to win court failures that would force Enbridge to eliminate the existing pipe from the Strait forever.
The analysis indicates that the tunnel would eliminate the risk that an boat anchor breaks the pipe and causes a spill in the narrow, a key concern for environmentalists. But construction would have radical effects in everything, from recreation to wildlife.
Many of the impacts, such as noise, views fogged by 400 feet cranes (121 meters), degradation construction lights of the collaboration opportunities of the stars in Headlands International Dark Sky Park and the vibrations that would disturb the aquatic wild life would end when the work is completed, the report found.
Other impacts would last longer, including the loss of wetlands and vegetation on both sides of the Strait that connects the Lake Huron and the Michigan Lake, and the loss of almost 300 trees that the northern ears bat and the tricolor bats use to rest. The qualification and excavation could also disturb or destroy archaeological sites.
The tunnel drilling machine could cause vibrations that could change the geology of the area. The floor in the construction area could be contaminated and almost 200 truck trips daily during the six -year construction period would degrade the roads of the area, according to the analysis. The gas mixture with water that filters in the tunnel could result in an explosion, but the analysis indicates that in Bridge plans to install fans to properly ventilate the tunnel during the excavation.
In Bridge, he has pledged to meet all safety standards, rethink vegetation when possible and contains erosion, the analysis said. The company has also said that it would try to limit the strongest work at daytime hours as much as possible, and compensate for damage to wetlands and protected species buying credits through mitigation banks. That money can be used to finance restoration in other areas.
“Our goal is to have the smallest possible environmental footprint,” said Enbridge officials in a statement.
The Sierra Club issued a statement on Friday by saying that the tunnel remains “an existential threat.”
“The possibilities of an oil spill in the big lakes, our most valuable fresh water resource, skirrockets if this tunnel is built in the narrow,” the group said. “We cannot drink oil. We cannot fish or swim in oil.”
Julie Goodwin, a senior lawyer from Earthjustice, a group of environmental law that opposes the project, said the body did not consider the impacts of a spill that could still occur on both sides of the Strait or stop the flow of oil through the large lakes.
“My key conclusions are the body of the army that has put the glasses in the Enbridge service and the fossil fuel agenda of President Trump,” he said.
In Bridge it has been using the pipe 5 pipe to transport crude oil and natural gas liquids between superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953. Approximately 4 miles (6 kilometers) of the pipe runs along the lower part of the Mackinac Strait.
Concerns about the rupture of the aging pipe and causing a potentially disastrous spill in the Strait have been built during the last decade. These fears intensified in 2018 when an anchor damaged the line.
In Bridge, he argues that the line remains structurally solid, but reached an agreement with the administration of the then governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, in 2018 that requires the company to replace the part of the Strait of the line with a new section that would be locked in a protective underground tunnel.
Environmentalists, American native tribes and Democrats have been fighting in court for years to stop the tunnel and force Enbridge to eliminate the existing pipe from the Strait. They have had little success until now.
A Michigan Court of Appeals in February validated the permits of the State Public Service Commission For the tunnel. Nessel demanded in 2019 seeking to cancel the servitude that allows line 5 to pass through the Strait. That case is still pending. Whitmer revoked the servitude in 2020, but in Bridge challenged that decision and a federal Court of Appeals in April he ruled that the case may proceed.
Around 12 miles (19 kilometers) of line 5 runs through the Bad River Band of Lake Chippewa’s Reservation in northern Wisconsin. That tribe sued in 2019 to force Enbridge to eliminate the reserve line, arguing that it is prone to spill and that the easements allow him to operate in the reserve expired in 2013.
In Bridge has proposed a 41 mile (66 kilometers) rediseve around the reserve. The tribe has filed a lawsuit Looking for zero state construction permits for the project and has joined several other groups to challenge permits through the State’s contested case.
