Protesters rally against pipeline under Mackinac Straits

The National Wildlife Federation said Tuesday it intends to sue the U.S. Department of Transportation in an effort to compel the federal government to take a stronger stance on pipeline safety in the Great Lakes.

A letter released Tuesday by the National Wildlife Federation to the Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx lays out the group’s concerns. University of Michigan scientists warned in 2014 that the Straits are “the worst possible place” for a Great Lakes oil spill.

“The Department of Transportation’s failure to even require such plans therefore is a huge oversight”, said National Wildlife Federation senior counsel Neil Kagan said.

“Congress essentially covered the field by enacting the Oil Pollution Act, and I believe that also under another law called the Pipeline Safety Act that only the federal government has jurisdiction over interstate pipelines, and the federal government has the responsibility”, Kagan says.

The pipeline is operated by Enbridge Energy – the company responsible for a massive oil spill in the Kalamazoo River in 2010. The result was years of clean-up work, dozens of families displaced and millions of dollars in penalties.

Protesters formed a human oil drop outside the Capitol in Lansing Thursday, demanding that state officials immediately shut down the aging Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac that scientists have warned is a “disaster just waiting to happen”.

Earlier this month, a task force led by Attorney General Bill Schuette and state Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant called for more pipeline transparency, more study, and a ban on heavy crude in the straits pipe. Conservation groups have called for the almost 60-year-old lines to be shut down to protect the Great Lakes.