To date, the federal government has still not created criteria for emergency response plans, argues the National Wildlife Federation.
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National Wildlife Federation leaders say the US Department of Transportation is failing to comply with the Oil Pollution Act, and they’ve filed a notice of intent to sue.
“We hope today’s action will be a catalyst for long-overdue protections that benefit people, communities and wildlife across the United States”, said Mike Shriberg, executive director of the NWF’s Great Lakes Regional Center.
“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. The group says the federal government did not force the pipeline’s owner Enbridge to have safety plans for a possible oil spill.
This month marks the 5-year anniversary of the Enbridge pipeline spill in the Kalamazoo River.
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”.
“Line 5 poses an immediate threat to both the waters of the Great Lakes and the people who depend on them”, David Holtz of the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter said in a statement.
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Pipeline safety has been a hot-button issue in Michigan for the past five years, starting with the 2010 rupture of Enbridge Energy’s underground oil pipeline near Marshall. Groups want Governor Rick Snyder and attorney general Bill Schuette to shutdown straits of Mackinac pipeline, also known as “Line 5”. She said the pipeline was “all risk and no reward”.
