By: Shelbi Fitzpatrick – Dartmouth College ’19
“There are many times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – Ellie Wiesel
Flint and Line 5 Comparison: Infrastructure and Idleness
As the community of Flint, Michigan, struggles to recover from a life-changing, water crisis, other regions of Michigan are facing similar water issues. Enbridge, a multinational energy transportation company, flows nearly 23 million gallons of oil and petroleum daily under the Straits of Mackinac through two pipelines known as Line 5. The Line 5 pipelines, which connect at the upper and lower Michigan Peninsulas, were commissioned in 1953, making Line 5 almost 65 years old. The Upper Michigan peninsula houses Mackinac county and the greatest population of Native Americans in Michigan. Fifteen federally recognized Indian tribes, as well as businesses and local governments, have spoken out to protect the Great Lakes and seek the deconstruction of Line 5; however, the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, acts otherwise. Not only has Snyder refused to decommission line 5, but he also refuses to shut down the flow of oil and petroleum running through line 5. The rusty pipelines and rusty politicians share commonalities with the decrepit pipes and corrupt government that delivered contaminated water to the city of Flint, Michigan which is 57% African American and 40% poor. Flint officials knew of the contaminated water and the consequences of consuming it, yet they allowed the predominantly poor and black citizens of Flint to ingest water polluted by a dirty river source and corrosive pipes. The condition of pipes are not the only similarity between Flint and Line 5; rather, they are only one of many markers of environmental racism and the absence of environmental justice.
Environmental justice, made official by an extensive and quantitative report done by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1992, is defined by the EPA as equality involved at all levels of “race, color, national origin, or income” when it comes to the implementation of environmental policy and regulations. Environmental justice is the interdisciplinary approach of looking at environmental issues like pollution, water safety, and toxic level contaminants and their intersections with social justice issues like bias, race, and social class. In regards to the dimensions of environmental justice working in the Flint water crisis, Paul Mohai, the environmental justice professor at the University of Michigan, said that this was the “most egregious case” that he has ever encountered. Mohai explained that the reason why the Flint case was viewed as environmentally unjust was due to the Michigan officials’ reactions to the community of Flint Michigan – which is mostly African American and poor. Because the community of Flint Michigan is majority poor and African American and the state officials treated the contaminated water little urgency, environmental injustice is produced within a racialized context. This racialized form of environmental injustice is known as environmental racism and is visibly evident in the Flint water crisis as well as in the Line 5 debate.
Mohai explained that as reports came in from Flint residents about the conditions of the water, the state responded by discounting evidence. Not only were the resident’s concerns about the water quality discount, but the state also acted in a disrespectful and dismissing manner to the poor and black community of Flint, Michigan. The treatment of the Flint community by state officials is similar to that of the Indigenous peoples of Michigan protesting Line 5. Desmond L. Berry, Natural Resource Department Manager of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTBOCI), recently made a public address on the legal responsibilities that state officials have to Native people in Michigan in regards to decommissioning the pipelines that run through the Straits of Mackinac. More specifically expressed by Berry, the Michigan state attorney general has a legal responsibility to “protect and preserve Indian tribal fishing rights as declared by the United States v. Michigan litigation.” In the event that state officials make decisions without the consultation of the tribe and do not act in the best interest of the tribe, officials would be violating a legal responsibility.
In addition to Indigenous people calling attention to the legal responsibilities of state officials, there is also an immense cultural significance of the Great Lakes to the Indigenous people in this region.* In a letter to Governor Snyder, the GTBOCI articulated this significance by saying, “The Straits of Mackinac occupy a hallowed place in the history of the Indian and non-Indian peoples of Michigan. They are at once an iconic symbol of the State and a sacred wellspring of Anishinaabe life and culture.” If the pipelines running through the Straits of Mackinac were to leak, the Indigenous cultural values and relationship to the straits would be forced to drastically change for the worse. State officials cannot ignore the litigation and the fact that not only is the greatest population of Native American people in Michigan located right next to the aging pipelines, but also that these native people have deeply-rooted cultural connections to the Mackinac Straits. If state officials decide to discount and dismiss these racial and cultural compositions, then they would be treating line 5 no different than how they treated Flint.
Like the crumbling pipes that supplied lead and disease contaminated water to Flint, Mackinac county and Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region are being threatened with a similar system of crumbling pipes. Deteriorating Infrastructure is often an indicator that foreshadows environmental racism. As the Michigan state government decided that the Flint river pipes were of no great investment to them, the government abandoned the infrastructure of Flint threatening its standards. We see this playing out with the Enbridge company as well. Enbridge has allowed for a pipeline to live far past it’s “expiration date”, finding little value in replacing the aging pipe with a new one or relocating the pipe all together. Enbridge is responsible for allowing the infrastructure of line 5 to deteriorate, and the state Michigan is responsible for allowing this and the deteriorating infrastructure in Flint.
We can learn from Flint. Local, state, and federal government systems must re-evaluate their diplomatic efforts of listening and responding to all the people they are representing. As a society, we can watch for and forecast the signs leading to environmental racism. We can do this by looking at factors like dismissive governmental/corporation behavior, deteriorating infrastructure, and environmental issues that affect disenfranchised, minority communities in particular. The comparison between Line 5 and Flint is frightening; therefore, we must do all that we can through all avenues – governments, businesses, communities, etc. – to ensure that the Flint water crisis and Line 5 don’t become indistinguishable.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the blog, its contributors, or Dartmouth College.This intent of this article is to impart general information and to disrupt and expose hegemonic/unjust settler-colonial systems, yet should not be taken as legal advice.
*For more information on the cultural significance of the Great Lakes to the Indigenous people of Michigan, I suggest reading Shelby Snyder’s blog titled Culture.