Great Lakes
Safeguarding One of the World’s Largest Freshwater Supplies
The Great Lakes are home to several iconic pipeline fights, including the Dakota Access Pipeline through Standing Rock, and Enbridge’s massive Line 3 and Line 5 pipelines, which cumulatively represent close to 350 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. The Great Lakes play a fundamental role in local fishing and tourism economies and provide drinking water for over 30 million people, making existing and planned pipelines in the region a clear and present danger. Several carry Canadian tar sands, which rank among the most carbon-intensive oils on the planet.
Equation Campaign’s grants support groups in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin who are opposing pipelines that cut through the heart of their homelands and local watersheds; the national climate and environmental organizations working with them; and the lawyers defending the rights of activists and organizations who face legal harassment and retaliation from the industry.
Site Fight Spotlight: Line 5 Expansion
Every day, Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline transports 22 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids through sovereign Indigenous territory in Wisconsin and Michigan, under Lake Superior, and through sensitive ecosystems in both states. Built in 1953, the decaying 645-mile pipeline, and its proposed expansion line, are a ticking time bomb in the heart of the Great Lakes.
Equation Campaign grantees, including Indigenous communities; state, regional, and national nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and litigators in both Michigan and Wisconsin, have been fighting to shut down Line 5 and prevent its expansion. A groundbreaking lawsuit in Wisconsin resulted in a federal court order to remove the portion of the pipeline that runs throughthe Bad River Band’s reservation, which will effectively require the entire pipeline to shut down. In 2023, grantee Bay Mills Indian Community also helped file an official Tribal complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council, alleging that Line 5 is a “current and foreseeable threat to a broad range of human rights.” Multi-jurisdictional litigation and extraordinary government interventions and negotiations between Canada and the United States underscore the importance of this pipeline to the entire industry.
