Last month, Alpena, Alpena Township, and Alpena County all passed a resolution adopting the Lake Huron Forever Pledge.

Lake Huron Forever is a partnership that began in 2019 by shoreline community foundations and conservation partners from the U.S. and Canada to protect water quality and encourage a healthy, sustainable future of that natural wonder we call Lake Huron and, most importantly, to protect it forever.

All three Alpena-area governmental bodies — the city, the county, and the township — agreed to specific goals and cooperation in achieving that objective.

As reported in The Alpena News, they join over 50 other communities from Ontario and Michigan who will meet regularly to identify projects, build partnerships, and leverage resources to protect the lake forever.

In each of their three plans, they have identified initiatives that will begin that “forever” dedication to protecting Lake Huron forever, and I applaud the Alpena-area governments for undertaking that critical task.

City Manager Rachel Smolinski said: “We look forward to building strong partnerships with the township and the county, which will help improve and protect Lake Huron for future generations.”

Township Supervisor Nathan Skibbe said: “Taking the Lake Huron Forever Pledge will help ensure that today’s environmental issues are addressed to the best ability and ensure our children will be afforded the best water quality possible.”

So, now, the lake protections begin by working together to eliminate or mitigate sources of pollution and create green spaces to help capture and treat stormwater, protect sensitive habitats, and a host of other meaningful projects.

But they could do more by addressing the single largest manmade threat to Lake Huron, and that is Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5, which pumps nearly 23 million gallons of Canadian oil through the Straits of Mackinac every day, most of it is on its way to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario to be utilized by Canadians.

Line 5 is 70 years old and was only intended to have a lifespan of 50 years. It has already spilled over a million gallons of oil, and, lucky for us, that has not yet happened in the Straits, which have been identified by the University of Michigan to be the worst possible place in the U.S. to have an oil spill.

U-of-M has shown that a significant spill would reach Thunder Bay, ruining our shoreline, putting a stop to commercial and recreational boat traffic, and jeopardizing water supplies for 700 miles of shoreline.

Folks, the Great Lakes hold 90% of America’s surface freshwater, and 20% of the entire world’s surface water.

Court proceedings are currently underway, with Enbridge fighting Michigan to keep that 70-year-old easement to cross the Straits alive — an easement that was revoked in 2020 by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, which was ignored by Enbridge.

It amazes me we are even having this discussion.

Meanwhile Enbridge wants to build a tunnel under the Straits, which have a depth of 290 feet, to put a new pipeline in. That, too, should be out of the question, as Engbridge has one of the worst environmental and compliance records in the industry and has been fined hundreds of million of dollars by the U.S. government for those violations.

Remember, Enbridge ignored the 2005 Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s warnings about its Line 6 near the Kalamazoo River after being notified the company had corrosive seams on that pipeline. Then, in 2010, those corrosive seams burst and spilled a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, the largest inland oil spill in American history. It cost over a billion dollars to clean up and many residential homes had to be evacuated.

There are viable — yes, expensive — alternatives if Line 5 were shut down.

Michigan should never be asked to assume the risk to the Great Lakes and it will take the citizens, the state, and local governments help to make that happen.

If you have any doubts about the looming catastrophe of a spill in the Straits, watch this link to a U-of-M modeling of such a spill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqvSwov6C5U&list=PLkpBjHvzRryqS5MhlqdfQCd6EoVX3c7Io&index=6.

The bottom line is a simple one. We cannot move the Great Lakes. We can move a pipeline, which would totally eliminate any and all risk of a Great Lakes oil spill disaster.

In light of that, I encourage all three Alpena-area governments to adopt a resolution supporting the closure of Enbridge’s Line 5, which would go hand-in-hand with their Lake Huron Forever Pledge.

If the city, the township, and the county are serious about protecting Lake Huron forever, there is no way they can ignore that single largest threat.

Alpena, Alpena Township, and Alpena County, adopt a resolution in support of shutting down Line 5 and opposing any tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac.

I know that is a controversial subject, but I want to know what your thoughts are at gregawtry@awtry.com.

Greg Awtry is the former publisher of the Scottsbluff (Neb.) Star-Herald and Nebraska’s York News-Times. He is now retired and living in Hubbard Lake. Greg can be contacted at gregawtry@awtry.com.