The current Line 5 situation is a disaster waiting to happen and is typical, IMO, of how ENB handles long term maintenance and repair. That's why I maintain that if nobody steps up to pay for the tunnel and its upkeep, it's likely the voters in this state will simply vote to shut it down and remove it at ENB's expense, kicking off yet another round of court battles while that ugly Line 5 only degrades more and more -- good thing it is cold fresh water or it would have been wet dust decades ago.
Realistically, there needs to be real work done on Line 5 of some significant sort NOW while they sort the rest of it out -- doesn't have to be a permanent fix, but they need to address some aspects of it while they sort it out or there WILL be 400 miles of oil slicked great lakes shoreline (probably affecting Huron the most of course -- and will make Flint look like a little wonky drinking fountain problem compared to what a Line 5 spill would do to Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay... Lake Erie was already not much more than a dirty shallow pool spread out over hundreds of square miles... Lake Ontario is surprisingly deep, but still pushes a lot of water out to St. Lawrence system in general... only Lake Superior would have a chance to escape all but very minor effects...
Lake Michigan would not fare well -- it's already bad water down on the Chicago end and if those invasive species make the jump from the river to Lake Mich. it will be game over for huge chunks of tourism and freshwater fishing, not to mention a lot of municipal water systems around places like Milwaukee or even Green Bay/Sturgeon Bay have seen some minor issues with water quality in recent years, though often caused by infrastructure, not the lake itself.
It would be a natural disaster unlike any other the U.S. has seen/had -- consider: over 20% of the fresh water on this planet right now is in the Great Lakes. At some point, potable water will spur wars instead of oil as the world's population keeps heading toward 8 and 9 billion people. We have plenty of oil and gas for all, but the supply of potable fresh water is dwindling with few exceptions (great lakes would be an exception, except for going sources of potential pollution). |
