The Line 5 pipeline: A disaster waiting to happen, or necessary to avoid an energy crisis?
The Big StoryPlay episode
Show notes
You've probably never heard of Line 5. It's an offshoot of Enbridge's main pipeline and it moves more than a half-million barrels of crude oil and natural gas from Alberta, through the United States and back across the border to Sarnia, Ont. Unless the state of Michigan gets its way and shuts it down on May 12.
The pipeline is more than 60 years old, and though Enbridge claims it's safe, a study reports that a spill could devastate the shorelines of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. So Michigan wants it shut off. But an immediate shutdown would leave Sarnia in economic crisis and hike energy prices across Ontario and Quebec as fuel would need to be moved by truck or train. So Canadian governments want the line to keep flowing. It has all the makeup of at least a legal mess, and possibly an environmental one, too.
GUEST: Hilary Beaumont, freelance investigative reporter (Read Hilary's story in The Narwhal)
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