Saboteurs have briefly shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline in Michigan..The incident happened Tuesday when protesters trespassed onto an Enbridge facility and tampered with the pipeline by turning off a safety valve, an Enbridge spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday..“The actions taken to unlawfully trespass on our facility in Michigan and attempt to tamper with energy infrastructure was reckless and dangerous,” Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said..Line 5 has been at the centre of a long-running environmental dispute between Calgary-based Enbridge and the state of Michigan..Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered the company to stop operating the pipeline by May because of concerns a section running underwater in the Straits of Mackinac could leak into the Great Lakes..Enbridge ignored that order and the two sides are embroiled in a legal battle over Line 5’s fate..Earlier this month the Canadian government, which backs Enbridge, escalated the dispute by invoking a decades-old pipeline treaty with the United States to trigger negotiations with Washington..Line 5 ships around 540,000 barrels per day of crude and refined products from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario..Duffy told Reuters the line was back up and running and the company did not anticipate any impact on deliveries to customers..Whitmer has said Line 5 poses an “unacceptable risk” to the people of Michigan, and an oil spill in the Great Lakes would be catastrophic..Line 5 is a key part of Enbridge Mainline network, which delivers around 3 million barrels per day of western Canadian crude to refineries in the United States and eastern Canada.
Saboteurs have briefly shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline in Michigan..The incident happened Tuesday when protesters trespassed onto an Enbridge facility and tampered with the pipeline by turning off a safety valve, an Enbridge spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday..“The actions taken to unlawfully trespass on our facility in Michigan and attempt to tamper with energy infrastructure was reckless and dangerous,” Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said..Line 5 has been at the centre of a long-running environmental dispute between Calgary-based Enbridge and the state of Michigan..Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered the company to stop operating the pipeline by May because of concerns a section running underwater in the Straits of Mackinac could leak into the Great Lakes..Enbridge ignored that order and the two sides are embroiled in a legal battle over Line 5’s fate..Earlier this month the Canadian government, which backs Enbridge, escalated the dispute by invoking a decades-old pipeline treaty with the United States to trigger negotiations with Washington..Line 5 ships around 540,000 barrels per day of crude and refined products from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario..Duffy told Reuters the line was back up and running and the company did not anticipate any impact on deliveries to customers..Whitmer has said Line 5 poses an “unacceptable risk” to the people of Michigan, and an oil spill in the Great Lakes would be catastrophic..Line 5 is a key part of Enbridge Mainline network, which delivers around 3 million barrels per day of western Canadian crude to refineries in the United States and eastern Canada.
