Action Alerts

Protect the Great Lakes from a dangerous pipeline project.

What's At Stake

An oil pipeline is putting the largest surface freshwater system in the world at risk. For more than seven decades, the Line 5 oil pipeline has been carrying oil and gas from western Canada to eastern Canada by taking a shortcut through the Great Lakes.  

The outdated pipeline has spilled at least 33 times over its lifespan, releasing at least 1.1 million gallons of oil into the environment. Now, Canadian pipeline company Enbridge wants to dig a tunnel below the lakebed to lock in another century of fossil fuel profits.  

At the direction of President Trump, the Army Corps of Engineers is likely to fast-track federal permits for the pipeline tunnel replacement — but the State of Michigan can still stop its construction. We need your help to urge Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer to reject this permit and protect our Great Lakes! 

Read More

Enbridge’s tunnel project threatens an oil disaster in the middle of the Great Lakes. Running a hazardous liquids pipeline through a confined underground tunnel has never been attempted anywhere else in the world – and for good reason. Expert geologists and engineers have warned that the design could lead to an explosion under the Straits of Mackinac, considered the worst spot in the Great Lakes for an oil spill because of the location and strength of the currents. A spill in the Straits would spread across more than 700 miles of Lake Michigan and Huron shoreline, contaminating the source of drinking water for around 40 million people. 

Earthjustice and the Native American Rights Fund represent the Bay Mills Indian Community, a Tribal Nation located in Michigan’s upper peninsula, in fighting to stop the tunnel project and to decommission Line 5. The Straits of Mackinac are a treaty-protected sacred site of creation for Bay Mills and for Anishinaabe people who have lived along the Great Lakes since time immemorial. A spill there would have unthinkable consequences for Tribal Nations – and for all of us. 

In his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order declaring an “Energy Emergency,” directing federal agencies to skip important reviews and to fast-track approvals for major fossil fuel infrastructure projects like the Line 5 oil tunnel.  

Even though the federal government is likely to rubber-stamp the tunnel project, we can urge the state to step in. Tell Gov. Whitmer to protect the Great Lakes and reject the Line 5 tunnel project.  

Protestors paddle next to the Mackinac Bridge at the Pipe Out Paddle Up Floatilla Against the Line 5 pipeline in Mackinaw City. (Sarah Rice for Earthjustice)
Protestors paddle next to the Mackinac Bridge at the Pipe Out Paddle Up Floatilla Against the Line 5 pipeline in Mackinaw City. (Sarah Rice for Earthjustice)

Delivery to Governor Whitmer

Important Notice

Your message is delivered to a public agency, and all information submitted may be placed in the public record. Do not submit confidential information.

By taking action, you will receive emails from Earthjustice. Change your mailing preferences or opt-out at any time. Learn more in our Privacy Policy. This Earthjustice action is hosted on EveryAction. Learn about EveryAction’s Privacy Policy.

Why is a phone number or prefix required on some action forms?

Trouble Viewing This Action?

If the action form is not loading above, please add earthjustice.org as a trusted website in your ad blocker or pause any ad blockers, and refresh this webpage. (Details.) If the action form still does not display, please report the problem to us at action@earthjustice.org. Thank you!

Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.