2018 Michigan Tech Magazine: Issue 2

The year was 1953. Dwight Eisenhower was president, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr were rolling around on the beach in From Here to Eternity, and engineers in Flint, Michigan, put the finishing touches on the first-ever Chevrolet Corvette. About 225 miles north, two parallel 20-inch pipelines were getting their first taste of crude oil on the bed of the Straits of Mackinac. Designed by the Bechtel Corporation—a company made famous by building the Hoover Dam 20 years prior—the Straits Pipelines stretch out for 4.5 miles, tethered to the bottom of the channel by screw anchors at depths ranging from 65 to 270 feet. They are part of a 645-mile pipeline system known simply as Line 5. Line 5 runs from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, and is now owned and operated by multinational energy corporation Enbridge.