The Straits of Mackinac connect Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and divide Michigan’s lower peninsula from its upper peninsula. But the gorgeous blue expanse of this part of the Great Lakes region is threatened by a danger lurking just beneath its surface: two degrading oil pipelines.
If just one of the pipelines ruptured, it would result in a spill of 1.5 million gallons of oil. University of Michigan research scientist Dave Schwab says, “I can’t imagine another place in the Great Lakes where it’d be more devastating to have an oil spill.”
Enbridge, the company that runs the pipelines, has a poor safety record, with more than 800 spills between 1999 and 2010.
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