We’ve been writing about Line 5, Enbridge’s 67-year-old twin pipelines under the straights of Mackinac for 5 years now: June 23, 2015 — Enbridge Line 5 pipeline beneath Straits of Mackinac – too old, unsafe, and a threat to the Great Lakes September 10, 2015 — As protesters call for Straits of Mackinac oil pipeline to be shut down, Enbridge […]

On June 21st of this year, an explosion rocked the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery in Philadelphia causing a massive amount of damage to the facility. The gigantic fire ball was captured on video by @1NiceTownBean: @6abc @CBSPhilly @FOX29philly Philadelphia energy Solutions Refining Complex at about 4:15 am pic.twitter.com/vK1Vs2MEfR — hood’s favorite vegan (@1nicetownbean) June 21, 2019 This explosion was […]

If you worried that poor, maligned Enbridge Energy was alone in its fight against the monstrous power of Michigan citizens who are desperate to save our Great Lakes from an unimaginable environmental catastrophe, you may now rest easy. A new corporate front group, an “AstroTurf” group as they are frequently called, has come to their aid, posing as, in their […]

Last week, 550 gallons of coolant containing toxic organic solvents (alkyl derivatives of benzene, specifically) were released into Lake Michigan from an electrical transmission cable running under the Straits of Mackinac. It happened because a ship went through the Straits dragging its anchor. (UPDATE: It appears that it was a tugboat owned by VanEnkevort Tug & Barge.) Enbridge Energy clearly […]

Native Americans protest Enbridge’s Line 5 in shadow of the Mackinac Bridge Under the Straits of Mackinac, just west of our iconic Mackinac Bridge, there is a set of two pipelines known as Line 5 which are owned by the Enbridge oil company. They were built in 1953, making them 64 years old this year, and before the Great Lakes […]

A new report out by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) shows how Big Energy corporations paid huge sums of money in the form of political donations for up-close-and-personal access to America’s Republican Attorneys General. These AGs, whose job is to advocate for and protect the citizens of their state from crime and corruption, are prime targets of lobbyists […]

Faced with the prospect of citizens in Michigan having the audacity, the gall, the nerve, the chutzpah to have a voice in how our state is run, Republicans decided it was high time to make it harder to amend the constitution or to put citizen initiatives on the ballot in our fine state. Today the House passed S.B. 776, a […]

Lon Johnson, the former Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, has made shutting down Enbridge Oil’s notorious Line 5 oil pipeline the center of his primary bid for Michigan’s 1st Congressional District seat. The controversial pipeline runs under the Straits of Mackinac and the horror of it rupturing is nearly too horrible to contemplate. Imagine that it fails in the […]

This past weekend, protesters from around the state gathered at the Mackinac Bridge to call for the shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline. The pipeline (actually TWO pipelines) are 62 years old and were built in a time when regulations were far more lax than they are now. Had the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act been in place when the […]

A group of 13 Greenpeace protesters are suspended from the St. Johns Bridge over the Willamette River leading to the Portland, Oregon harbor. The icebreaker MSV Fennica has been in the harbor for repairs and planned to return to Shell Oil’s artic drilling area. Oil drilling there cannot take place without the equipment being delivered by the Fennica. They are […]

Round Island Lighthouse in the Straits of Mackinac, photo by Anne C. Savage The aspiring but unannounced 2018 gubernatorial candidate Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette appointed a Task Force to address the increasing public concern about Line 5, Enbridge’s pipeline that runs under the Straits of Mackinac. That was last year. Since then new voices and new media outlets have […]