The U.S. Coast Guard is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by two environmental groups, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Law & Policy Center. According to the two groups, their decision to sue came in response to the U.S. Coast Guards “admitted inability to respond adequately to a Great Lakes oil spill.” As a result, the lawsuit seeks to “invalidate the response plans for facilities such as Enbridge, which operates Line 5 beneath the Straits of Mackinac.”
The U.S. Coast Guard is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by two environmental groups, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Law & Policy Center. According to the two groups, their decision to sue came in response to the U.S. Coast Guards “admitted inability to respond adequately to a Great Lakes oil spill.” As a result, the lawsuit seeks to “invalidate the response plans for facilities such as Enbridge, which operates Line 5 beneath the Straits of Mackinac.”
According to the suit, last December, former Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft made comments during a congressional committee hearing about how the agency was not “prepared for a major pipeline oil spill in the Great Lakes.” According to the environmental groups, his comments “belie and invalidate the Coast Guard-approved Northern Michigan Area Contingency Plan and violate the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.”
What does the Coast Guards current plan look like, should an oil spill occur? Does it have one? After all, many of us have seen the damage a large oil spill can have on water life and the surrounding environment, so this is a big deal.
Well, according to Oday Salim, a staff attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, the Coast Guard’s current plan is totally inadequate. He said it leaves the “Coast Guard unprepared to address a worst-case spill from Enbridge’s Line 5, which could affect more than 400 miles of shoreline and 60,000 acres of wildlife habitat.” He added, “Until we decommission this aging, risky pipeline, we need the best-possible spill response plan to protect our Great Lakes, our communities, our wildlife and our economy.”
The U.S. Coast Guard approved its current preparedness plan, known as the North Michigan Area Contingency Plan, back in June 2017, “certifying the agency could respond to a worst-case discharge.” Shortly after, though, Zukunft stood in front of Congress and said the Coast Guard is “not Semper Paratus for a major pipeline oil spill in the Great Lakes.” Semper Paratus means ‘always ready’ in Latin.
Kearney lashed back against the Coast Guard’s North Michigan Area Contingency Plan, saying, “It was unlawful for them to approve it when in fact they’re not able to remove the discharge from a worst-case oil spill.”
The possibility of a catastrophic oil change has always worried many Michigander’s, which is a big reason why the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was passed. Created in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires “oil spill contingency plans in areas where oil is transported through waterways.”
When commenting on the matter, Margrethe Kearney, senior attorney for Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center, said, “You are not allowed to operate without a facility response plan…If the court agrees, as they should, that the area contingency plan is not valid then certainly one of the outcomes could be someone requesting that Line 5 be shut down.”
At the moment, the lawsuit is requesting a judge to “declare the approval of the Northern Michigan contingency plan a violation of the Oil Pollution Act and invalidate sections of the plan that relate to open waters and any facility-specific response plans created in coordination with the plan, including Enbridge’s facility response plan,” according to the suit.
The U.S. Coast Guard has yet to comment on the pending litigation.
Sources:
Environmental groups sue U.S. Coast Guard over Great Lakes oil spill response plans
Environmental groups sue the Coast Guard over pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac
Join the conversation!