The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers formally issued a permit for the Line 5 pipeline replacement on Tuesday, confirming that the agency had meticulously followed all federal guidelines for acknowledging the damage it is about to inflict on Indigenous lands.
In a decision finalizing the environmental review for the Enbridge project beneath the Straits of Mackinac, federal regulators noted that the construction would disrupt tribal fishing grounds, harm local ecosystems, and breach standing treaties. Having successfully identified and documented these violations in the correct typeface, the Corps immediately cleared the tunnel project to proceed.
Our environmental assessment was incredibly thorough, and we are proud to say we have comprehensively cataloged the exact legal and ecological devastation this infrastructure will cause before allowing it to happen anyway.
Halloway noted that the agency had engaged in extensive consultations with the affected tribal nations, listening carefully to their concerns so that the exact coordinates of the treaty violations could be accurately mapped in the final permit application. The filing allows Enbridge to replace an aging, highly dangerous segment of the crude oil pipeline with a brand new, fully authorized segment capable of transporting 540,000 barrels of future stranded assets per day.
The project still requires sign-off from the Michigan Public Service Commission, which is expected to review the Corps' environmental impact statement next month. The finalized documents have already been uploaded to the federal registry, where they will remain permanently available to assure displaced communities that the destruction of the Great Lakes was done with the proper paperwork.