Shut down pipeline

Cheers for the the Bad River band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s challenge to Big Oil (“Tribe wants pipeline off its land,” Jan. 11).

Considering the more than 3,300 U.S. oil and liquefied natural gas pipeline ruptures and leaks since 2010, Enbridge‘s dismal safety record, and Line 5’s advanced age (10 years past life expectancy), a spill on tribal land is long overdue.

The tribe is not alone in opposing Line 5. The new Great Lakes Business Network is targeting it, and dozens of Michigan jurisdictions have passed resolutions supporting legislation to shut it down to protect the environment and lucrative tourism and fishing industries of the Mackinac Straits and Great Lakes. Kalamazoo is among them, having still-fresh memories of the Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo River — America’s worst-ever inland spill. Although much of Line 5’s petroleum is Canada’s, the risk belongs to us.

As production of America’s oil and gas shales and Alberta’s tar sands ramps up, pipelines are proliferating in the Great Lakes region. But petroleum production and use must be curtailed and no new pipelines built if we hope to prevent runaway climate change.

Carol Steinhart

Madison Please email your letters to jsedit@jrn.com , or mail them to Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-0371.