Supplemental Draft EIS Comments

This project solely falls into the jurisdiction of Michigan and the United States yet serves zero purpose in assisting the US market and only serves to allow Enbridge a canadian company to export oil reserves to clients inside Canada's own borders. If something were to happen to the infrastructure Enbridge could simply claim no responsibility while both environmental impacts could be disastrous and economical impacts only serve to harm the people who in no way benefit from this infrastructure.

1. Water Intake Structure
a. After completion, what type of rock will be placed around the structure?
b. Directional Drilling
i. What mitigation procedures are in place in case of frac-out?
ii. Bentonite in excessive amounts can attach to and clog fish gills, restricting oxygen intake and potentially causing suffocation.
1. Consider adding a second turbidity curtain as an extra precaution.
2. If bentonite settles on gravel, cobble, and rock substrate, consider vacuum methods to remove sediment from existing substrate.
3. Monitor for fish kills and document number and size by species.
iii. Avoid disturbance at the exit point during the month of November to protect spawning of Lake Trout, Lake Whitefish, and Cisco.
c. During operation, Fish entrainment and impingement should be monitored
i. The screens and wedge wire design use best management practices reported by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
1. Max approach velocity of 0.33 ft per second is recommended and the proposed is 0.24 ft per second.
2. Max slot opening on wedge wire of 0.25 inch is recommended and the proposed is 0.069 inch.
2. Tunnel Drilling Activity
a. Vibrations
i. Timing based on when by certain substrate? Nighttime shut down? Where are spawning zones?
1. Avoid tunneling activities between October and December when water temperature drops below 45°F along nearshore rock and gravel substrates when the tunneling is conducted less than 75 ft below the lake bottom.
a. Avoid tunneling activities during the month of June at the entry and exit points to protect spawning smallmouth bass that could be displaced by vibrations in the area.
2. There are no known spawning reefs above the tunnel corridor based on the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework GIS maps, but there are spawning grounds for Lake Trout, Lake Whitefish, Round Whitefish, and Suckers as identified by Organ et al. 1979 – Past and presently known spawning grounds of fishes in the Michigan coastal waters of the Great Lakes. DNR, Fisheries Division Technical Report 79-1.
ii. How far do vibrations go underwater? What frequencies can be expected?
3. Angler and Boater Notifications – How will anglers and other water users in the area know to avoid construction activities? Will there be news releases or public bulletins?
4. Use of historically disturbed areas
a. It looks like there is a pipeline corridor showing hard substrate at the southern shore. Can the water intake use this same corridor to prevent new disturbance to bottom substrates? Marked by white arrow in below substrate map.

I am vehemently opposed to any tunnel or underground HDD related to the Enbridge Line 5 twin oil pipelines. Why would the United States take on this risk to the waters of the Great Lakes at the Straights of Mackinac to transport Canadian oil to Canadian refineries? There should be ZERO risk taken with the waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. You must listen to the scientific experts from the University of Michigan who say this is a bad idea. You must put the safety of the environment over the profits of Enbridge. We must stop the use of fossil fuels to mitigate the worst effects of climate change and global warming. This entire Enbridge project is in complete contradiction to the Climate Action Plan of the State of Michigan. You must take into account the terrible track record Enbridge holds in regard to oil spills.

The most environmentally safest way to provide energy . Also the cost effective way to heat and cool homes.

Line 5 should be shut down immediately. No tunnel and no horizontal drilling. We do not need this pipeline. It risks our Great Lakes, Michigan’s economy and violates treaty rights. Michigan uses only a fraction of the oil from that pipeline. Competitors have stated over and over again that they can easily pick up the volume. The fact that Enbridge makes $1.8 million per day seems to have an undue influence over common sense. The latest tactic… Horizontal,
drilling is a bait and switch. We are counting on the state of Michigan Governor Whitmer, and the Army core of engineers to please stop playing games with 20% of the world freshwater and shut down the pipeline and stop a very environmentally irresponsible company. Enbridge has proven over and over again, they do not care about our environment. They care only for profit and we must not be influenced by their greed.
Please do the right thing shut down line 5, and stop the proposed tunnel/horizontal drilling scam

There’s scientific consensus that human caused climate change poses dire risks to our survival. Given that we’re experiencing record setting heat consistently and that predictions are that this increase will continue, the Great Lakes become even more vital to our survival going forward. The Great Lakes act as a climate stabilizer so as other areas of the country experience excessive heat, water shortages and other severe weather consequences as a result of climate change we have the Great Lakes as a buffer. This vast resource of fresh water is still clean and the value of that is hard to calculate. I’m no expert but we’ve all witnessed environmental disasters and if this is built it should be state of the art, it should set a new standard in safety. I question the last minute determination that deep drilling is feasible and safe now compared to the consensus in 2018. Our environment becomes more polluted everyday and that makes the treasure of the Great Lakes that much more vital to keep as clean and pristine as is possible. It’s inevitable that we’ll continue to transition away from fossil fuels so this seems like a big risk to take for corporate profits that the regular citizens will never get a piece of. The Great Lakes belong to all of us unlike the profit that that pipeline will create. I’m a fifty eight year old carpenter living ten miles from the south shore of Lake Superior.

This particular line from the Executive Summary greatly concerned me: "While vegetation would be restored following construction, forested areas would take many years to regenerate, and it is possible that cleared forest in wetland areas may regenerate with emergent vegetation, which would represent a permanent change in wetland composition. Ground disturbance under this alternative would also likely have an adverse impact to cultural resources, including to a National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-eligible Traditional Cultural Landscape (which includes and extends beyond all the alternatives/subalternatives analyzed in the EIS), as well as impacts to an NRHP-eligible archaeological historic district." (p. 17 Executive Summary, Section 2.1)

The vegetation that would be removed for this project took years - possibly, for some trees, centuries - to form. The wetlands, thousands of years. These ecosystems will not bounce back quickly; in the case of the wetlands, potentially not at all.

I am also very concerned about impacts on wildlife. Several endangered species, including birds, insects, and bats, are listed as possibly impacted, as well as threatened species (p. 3-18 through 3-22, Main Document, Section 3.5.5 Protected Species). Loss of habitat for these endangered and protected species is a serious ecological issue that could have ripple effects beyond the species affected.

All of these actions are things we can't take back once they are done. The same is true for the cultural artifacts that would be lost if archaeological and cultural sites are not preserved. The permanence of these losses for what will necessarily be a temporary source of energy (there is not infinite oil - we can and will not use this pipeline forever) would be unforgivable.

To take away from future generations for our own temporary comfort is greed of the highest order. Those of us alive today know all to well what it means to be living in a world that future generations have destroyed, knowingly or not, in order to live more convenient and comfortable lives and to enrich individuals. We are facing great climate disaster, the destruction of water, air, soil, and entire species, because of this greed. Here in Michigan, we have the opportunity to make a different choice. We have a chance to stop Enbridge and Line 5 from wreaking havoc on fragile ecosystems, polluting the air and creating a great risk of spilling oil into the previous Great Lakes.

With climate change shifting into high gear, there is a high likelihood that Michigan will be a spot for climate refugees to flock to due to our proximity to a great source of fresh water. We are endangering not just the current residents of Michigan and the entire Great Lakes region, but the many people who will likely come to us looking for a safe place to live. With droughts threatening so many other places in the United States (and world), Line 5 is an existential threat to 20% of the fresh water on Earth. We know pipelines have failed before, and can fail again.

I strongly oppose any efforts to construct this pipeline, no matter the location or plan, especially due to its effects on wildlife, vegetation, cultural sites, and water and air quality.

To whom it concerns

I am writing against the revised proposal for Enbridge Line 5 horizontal directional drilling proposal. This last minute proposal is not in good faith given lack of transparency and shortened time for public comments. No independent assessment on the environmental impact has been made. In additional, Enbridge has already issued a report in 2018 against the feasibility of horizontal drilling beneath the Straits. The recent change in position is not backed up by Enridge's record of drilling fluid leaks in past drilling projects.

This proposal should be rejected and Line 5 should be shut down. The world's largest source of fresh water is too valuable a resource and must be protected.

Thank you for your consideration.

I've written in the past opposing the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel project, but felt compelled to reiterate my opposition when I heard about the horizontal drilling option that's now been offered as an alternative to the tunnel. While it may be cheaper than the tunnel, I don't think cost is the correct metric for measuring the preservation of the Great Lakes environment and ecosystems. I think Line 5 in Michigan should be shut down completely, given its age and the history of Enbridge pipeline failures in the past, notably the Talmadge Creek/Kalamazoo River Line 6B spill in Calhoun Co., MI, 15 years ago. I live in the nearby Battle Creek River watershed and saw the devastation caused by that spill, and the 10+ years of work that was required to repair the effects. I can't even imagine the immeasurable destruction that would be caused by a failure of Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. Honestly, I'm not sure why keeping Line 5 in operation is even a question--it's a Canadian company, moving Canadian tar sands from Canada through Michigan to Canada, and all the profits stay in Canada. Given those facts (and if it's so safe), let Enbridge build their pipeline completely in Canada, rather than through the largest concentration of fresh water in the world. But, failing a complete shutdown, we should at least be looking for the safest, most reliable manner of moving the material through Michigan, not the cheapest. The way I see it (and I'm no civil engineer, of course), having a pipeline enclosed within a tunnel through the bedrock is safer for the environment than simply drilling an unlined hole to put it through. Any failure of the pipeline might take longer to spot and do considerably more damage if it's leaking into the bedrock than into a tunnel. It took hours for the Talmadge Creek spill to be recognized and the pipeline shut down--hours during which more and more damage was being done to the entire watershed. And for all the technology that was supposed to warn Enbridge of a leak, it was phone calls from residents of Battle Creek, due to the oil slick on the Kalamazoo River and the related odor, that finally drew Enbridge's attention. Given that situation, where the pipeline was just below ground and yet it still took too long to find and stop the leak, why should Enbridge be allowed to put any new pipelines through the United States at all, especially in as sensitive an area as the Straits of Mackinac? At least if the line was in a tunnel, a spill could be contained. Stuffed through a narrower hole in the ground, although deeper and in bedrock, it seems more likely that it could leak undetected for a longer time and be harder to contain once the leak starts. I'm no geologist, but I'm pretty sure bedrock is not impermeable. So any leak in a horizontally-drilled hole in the rock is no less dangerous than one simply buried a few feet below the surface. The only difference is that it will take longer for the spill to impact the surface water and for it to be traced back to the source. I cannot fathom why there is still discussion of this whole project. So much of Michigan's economy and ecosystems rely on being surrounded by the Great Lakes. People and wildlife drink water from the Lakes, eat fish harvested from the Lakes, and recreate in the Lakes. The Lakes affect our weather patterns considerably. A great deal of commerce depends on shipping through the Lakes. If there's an oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac, use of the Lakes and life near them will be impacted in ways we can't even fully anticipate. So I implore you to deny Enbridge's application to maintain their Line 5 route through any of the Great Lakes or the State of Michigan.