Whitmer: Enbridge dodging responsibility for potential spill

Posted: Jul 23, 2020 / 08:57 AM EDT / Updated: Jul 23, 2020 / 08:58 AM EDT

FILE – This June 2020 file photo, shot from a television screen provided by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy shows damage to anchor support EP-17-1 on the east leg of the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline within the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer criticized Enbridge Inc. on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 for what she described as the company’s refusal to make an airtight pledge that it would pay for any damages caused by an oil spill from its pipeline beneath a Great Lakes waterway. (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy via AP File)

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer says Enbridge is falling short of a clear pledge to pay for any spill from its oil pipeline in a Great Lakes channel.

Whitmer’s administration is pushing the Canadian company for an airtight, written promise to cover any costs of a spill from Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac.

Enbridge says it already provided such assurances under a 2018 deal with former Gov. Rick Snyder to build a tunnel that would house a new pipeline in the straits.

Whitmer says that agreement was signed by subsidiaries but not by Enbridge Inc., their parent company. Enbridge says the parent company is bound by the same deal.