Since I am a planet nerd I checked out a Great Lakes preservation event at Patagonia last night! If you are a lover of the Great Lakes or attuned to the Flint Michigan crisis, you might find the aged pipeline running under the Mackinaw bridge concerning: http://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/problem

If this pipeline were to burst, best case scenario it would leak over a million gallons and due to the water current in this area, it would be the most difficult spot to clean up an oil spill in the Great Lakes. For perspective, a 2010 spill in Marshall, MI spilled 843,444 gallons of oil and took 4 years to clean up, all the while dealing with a local water crisis from an economic perspective.

Overall the event was a massive success for the grassroots campaign. I think over 75 people squeezed into the LP store to watch the film and the discussion following was really interesting. Also being at a huge corporate communications agency, seeing an NGO fighting against a corporation (Canadian oil company Enbridge) got me thinking, what if Enbridge was our client? What would we encourage the company to do and say? (I for one would tell them to just shut it down before they face the inevitable and worst PR scenario of all time, especially since they would hardly lose profit from shutting down Line 5 in the grand scheme of things)

There were so many questions with great answers at this panel, I could go on and on. Happy to give anyone the low-down if you’re interested! Or check out the website and encourage the Michigan government to shut Line 5 down!