Cyclists ride to shut down Enbridge pipeline
MARYSVILLE - Murtaza Nek started a bike ride Tuesday with Iona Feldman not because it was a nice day for a ride, but to bring attention to what the pair claim is a ticking time bomb snaking across Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas and under the Straits of Mackinac and the St. Clair River.
The Bike the Line protest is an attempt to marshal enough opposition to Enbridge's Line 5 to convince authorities to shut down the 63-year-old pipeline that carries light crude and natural gas produced in Canada through the United States from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia.
Both men are members of the sponsoring Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands. They contend the line is unsafe.
"Ever since the National Wildlife Federation released video of Line 5 in the Straits being exposed to water, it raised a lot of concerns and alarm among people of all walks of life," said Nek, who was arrested in 2013 in Texas during a protest of the Keystone Pipeline. "... The idea of keeping the Great Lakes clean is universal."
He said one of the goals of the ride — which will be more than 750 miles long — is to meet with people along the route to talk about Line 5.
"We need to connect with the faces of the people who would be most affected if there was a spill," said Nek, who lives in Detroit.
He said organizers purposely picked the day of a massive exercise intended to train first responders about what to do in the event of a pipeline leak affecting the St. Clair River.
Feldman, from Boston, said the Straits crossing is a major issue because it could potentially impact Lakes Michigan and Huron.
"A fifth of the jobs in Michigan rely on the Great Lakes," he said. "If there was a spill, it would be really bad for the economy of the state.
"It's also people's drinking water," he said. "It's also tourism."
The bike ride will continue until it reaches Reese in Bay County, then take a month-long hiatus before resuming in July. Organizers hope to reach Superior by Aug. 20.
It was part of a protest of about 20 people in conjunction with the oil spill training.
"One of our top campaigns is to shot down Line 5," said Mariah Urueta, an organizer for Food and Water Watch, a consumer rights group based in Washington, D.C.
Line 5, she said, "poses too great of a threat to our Great Lakes."
Randy Emerson, of Windsor, Ontario, was at the protest representing the Council of Canadians, a social action organization.
"The Straits of Mackinac go into the Great Lakes, and the Great Lakes don't know a border," he said.
"And pollution doesn't know a border."
Contact Bob Gross at (810) 989-6263 or rgross@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobertGross477.
More information
To find out more about Bike the Line, go to www.biketheline.org; or more information about Food and Water Watch, go to www.foodwandwaterwatch.org; and for more information about the Council of Canadians, go to http://canadians.org/.
Enbridge, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, has information about LIne 5 at www.enbridge.com/Line5