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Enbridge Says Missing Coating Never Affected Line 5 Safety

An EPA employee holds one of the types of booms used to clean up the Kalamazoo River oil spill in 2010. Patrick Miles of the U.S. Attorney's Office (middle) and acting EPA regional administrator Robert Kaplan (right) made the announcement about the Enbrid
WMUK

(MPRN-Lansing) Enbridge Energy says this year was not the first time some protecting coating was scraped off the exterior of Line 5.  

Line 5 is the oil and gas pipeline that ships 23 million gallons of oil and gas on a route that runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The company just alerted state officials that in 2014 engineers found anti-corrosion coating had rubbed off parts of the line.

Ryan Duffy with Enbridge says the engineers did not think that information was important enough to share with superiors because the integrity of the line was not affected.

“This was never a safety issue – the safety of the pipeline was never compromised.”

State officials say this is one more instance of Enbridge not sharing critical information and their faith is eroding that the company takes the safety of Line 5 seriously.

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