Billboard by Watershed Aware LLC placed along I-75 in Gaylord on July 3, 2025 | Photo submitted by Watershed Aware
As residents throughout the state made their annual pilgrimages north in celebration of Independence Day weekend, a group of activists posted their first billboard along the Interstate 75 corridor into northern Michigan, raising concerns about the 72-year-old pipeline’s continued operations in the Great Lakes.
Owned by Canadian energy company Enbridge, Line 5 stretches from northwestern Wisconsin, through the Upper Peninsula, into lakebed in the Straits of Mackinac where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet and down into the lower peninsula ending in Sarnia, Ontario.
Transporting more than 22 million gallons of light crude oil and natural gas liquids daily, activists have called the pipeline a ticking time bomb, pointing to a July 2010 spill, where Enbridge’s Line 6B ruptured, releasing 840,000 gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek, which flows into the Kalamazoo River.
Watershed Aware, a limited liability corporation that says it was founded by a group of concerned citizens, on July 3 placed along I-75 in Gaylord the first of what it says will be several billboards in an effort to “help Michigan citizens understand more clearly the impacts and costs of Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 Tunnel Project.”
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Enbridge identified gaps in Line 5’s protective coating in 2014, while a 2018 anchor strike dented the pipeline in three places, intensifying concerns about the pipeline’s safety. In 2018, Enbridge announced an agreement with the state to relocate the two segments of the pipeline into a new section, housed in a concrete-lined tunnel buried beneath the bedrock of the Straits of Mackinac.
The project has since received necessary permits from the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the Michigan Public Service Commission, while the United States Army Corps of Engineers moves forward under emergency processing in line with President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order instructing federal agencies to utilize the corps’ emergency permitting provisions “to the fullest extent possible” to facilitate the nation’s energy supply.
The Corps issued its draft environmental impact statement on May 30, with Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy telling the Michigan Advance the company’s goal in constructing the tunnel is to have the smallest possible environmental footprint.
“The tunnel design already reflects that intent, and we will use the USACE’s findings from the [draft statement] to further refine the project,” Duffy said.
Public comment on the statement closed on June 30 with several environmental organizations arguing the review failed to consider the pipeline’s long-term impacts on climate change, while calling for a more detailed review of the geology of the lakebed as well as a consideration of alternatives to the tunnel.
The company is also working to redo several permit applications with the Department of Great Lakes Environment and Energy, including its Water Resources Protection, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, which aims to limit the amount of pollutants discharged into surface waters.
The billboard posted in Gaylord calls attention to the permit’s request to discharge 5 million gallons per day of various wastewaters associated with tunnel construction and drainage as well as groundwater seepage, and storm water into Lake Michigan.
However, Duffy said conditions for water use and return to the environment are dictated by a separate National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit issued by the department that authorizes discharges of water in a manner that will not adversely impact Lake Michigan’s water quality.
Watershed Aware said in its statement that they are working to raise funds for billboards along the I-75 corridor, which leads up through Mackinaw City across the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula.
Alongside concerns about the tunnel project’s environmental impacts, members of Michigan’s Tribal Communities raised concerns on how the construction process will impact cultural sites and ancestral remains.
A recent investigation from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Enbridge potentially escaped federal review of land that tribes say is likely to have items of cultural significance through a land swap with Michigan’s Emmet County, with County later paving over the plot in 2023.
“While people are celebrating their 4th of July, the alleged freedoms and rights that were fought for. The Indigenous people of Michigan are fighting a tunnel that is being built for Canadian gains and profits, their plan is to desecrate tribal ancestral remains that have been buried for thousands of years on both sides of the Straits of Mackinac. This proves that we are not free nor do we have rights, even in death. This is disgraceful,” Andrea Pierce, chair of Anishinaabek Caucus and a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, said.
Pierce was among a group who in 2020 identified a submerged cultural site just a short distance from Line 5.
Duffy said Enbridge has conducted surveys in the Straits at the direction of and in consultation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which is responsible for consulting under the National Historic Preservation Act to assess potential impacts to historic properties The details of those surveys were provided to the corps. However, Enbridge is unable to provide information on the findings due to confidentiality agreements.
Duffy also noted that Tribal representatives were consulted as part of the corps’ efforts to assess the project’s effects on historic properties, noting that the corps consulted routinely with Tribes over the course of the last five years.
In advance of the Trump administration’s move to place the tunnel project on an expedited track for review, the Bay Mills Indian Community alongside the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi, and Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi and the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians withdrew from participating in the project as “cooperating agencies” under the National Environmental Policy Act.
At an April 16 meeting, the corps said it continues to consult with the Tribes who withdrew their participation, as well as 13 other Tribes.