kodda/iStock by way of Getty Photos
A federal choose on Thursday retained jurisdiction over a lawsuit searching for to forestall Enbridge’s (NYSE:ENB) Line 5 oil pipeline improve from crossing the Straits of Mackinac within the Nice Lakes, rejecting the state of Michigan’s try and shift the case to state court docket.
The ruling from U.S. District Choose Janet Neff is a win for Enbridge (ENB), which has battling with Michigan over Line 5, which ships 540K bbl/day of crude and refined merchandise from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario.
A four-mile part of the getting older pipeline runs underwater by way of the Straits, and environmentalists are anxious concerning the threat of an oil leak.
Michigan’s legal professional basic is difficult a 1953 easement granted by the state to run a piece of the pipeline throughout state-owned bottomlands, saying it violates common-law “public belief” doctrine requiring the state to guard Nice Lakes waters.
Enbridge (ENB) and the Canadian authorities have invoked a 1977 treaty with the U.S. that ensures cross-border move of oil and pure gasoline.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered the pipeline to close down by Could 2021, which Enbridge defied.