the greatest lakes

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

Michigan’s decades-long fight to shut down the Line 5 pipeline will be heard in state court after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the dispute belongs there, clearing the way for judges to weigh whether the aging oil pipeline can continue crossing the Straits of Mackinac. 

The ruling is seen as a win for tribes, environmentalists, and state Attorney General Dana Nessel, who preferred to keep the fight in state court. She has since 2019 been trying to revoke the easement that allows the pipeline to cross the Straits, which connect lakes Michigan and Huron, citing the risk of an oil spill.

“For far too long, following years of Enbridge’s delay tactics, the fear of a catastrophic spill from Line 5 has haunted our state, threatening to turn our most vital natural resource into a man-made disaster,” Nessel said in a statement.

The pipeline, owned by the Canadian company Enbridge Energy, transports crude oil and natural gas liquids 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario, a route that includes a critical 4.5-mile segment along the lakebed of the Straits.

Legal experts said the procedural ruling was significant because it determines which court will decide the pipeline’s future. Enbridge’s lawyers argued that a federal court was the proper venue because federal safety laws and international agreements are involved. (The Canadian government opposes shutting down Line 5, which provides half of the oil supply for Ontario and Quebec). Michigan’s lawyers countered that the pipeline violates the state’s ability to manage its natural resources, making this a matter for state court.

With the question of jurisdiction answered, legal experts said state courts can now decide whether the portion of the pipeline spanning the Straits should be shut down. A unanimous decision by the high court is a “big deal,” said Andy Buschbaum, lawyer for the Great Lakes Business Network, which filed briefs in support of the attorney general.

Purple Fade

Chicago, Illinois - Jan, 2026

The Great Lakes aren't haunted. No matter what anyone says, the Lakes aren't haunted. They are the memory-eaters, the old dark painted over with charming blue, and what sinks does not rise, not even the dead. When the Lake raises goosebumps, it isn't the bodies in the depths. It's just the Lake, reminding you that you are mostly water and water calls to its own.

The oceans, the old saltwater womb, warn you with every breaker that they are dangerous. The oceans never let you forget that you crawled from their hold, with your saltwater veins, but not all of your ancestors did, and there are things beneath the ocean tides, waiting with teeth to spill the blood you stole. The oceans with their shawls of hurricanes, their steady beating, make it impossible to forget the threat of them.

But the Great Lakes? The Lakes will lie to you. The Lakes will not gift you the buoyancy of saltwater, will tempt you with still surfaces and cool drinkable freshwater. The Lakes will promise that there is nothing with teeth waiting below, as though the Lake itself is not the maw of something hungry. The Lakes are new to the world, in the scale of epochs, and they play games. They lap at your knees like they are tamed, but if you swim long enough there will be a moment where the Lake throws you sideways, pulls you under, and you remember that this is a wild thing, with teeth of ice and nothing but water in its belly. They hold the last breath of every foolish swimmer that lowered their guard for a second too long, and the carcasses of centuries of shipwrecks, and they do not surrender what they take. No, the Lakes are not haunted. The Lakes are not cursed. There is no monster waiting in the depths, only the depths themselves, and that is enough.

They say that freshwater doesn't lay quiet in its bed until it's had its measure of blood, and the Great Lakes are thrashing at their shorelines.

Oh, my darlings, bodies and shipwrecks and memories are not the only things the Great Lakes devour--seasons, too, the Lakes cling to. All summer long the Lakes hold tight to the chill of winter, scattering cool breezes off their shoulders onto the coast. All summer long the Lakes hoard heat, storing it down in the deep thermal reservoir of fresh water, the golden heart of sunlight tucked away for the dark winter months. All summer long the Lakes steal warmth from the air and store it away, and when the sharp northern winds bring winter, the Lakes breathe out the last ghost of summer and fling themselves skyward. When the air is freezing, the Lakes have held fast the deep battery of summer, and the warm memory of July evaporates from the water and crystallizes in the atmosphere as January snow. All summer long the Lakes trade in winter winds, and all winter they shake out the white storm coat of summer.

Lake Michigan

Lake Huron

Lake Erie

The account in question

I swear every other shipwreck was caused by a company putting profits above everything from ship maintenance to vital repairs to establishing shipping lanes to using suitable materials to build ships out of to sailing during storms.

Then you have wrecks like the Carl D where the two survivors testified that the ship split in two, but the company hired someone to survey the wreck in secrecy with no impartial witnesses and would you look at that? The ship is only in one piece and therefore the company can say the sinking was an "act of God" and not be held responsible for the sinking, effectively gaslighting the two survivors who, again, saw the ship split in two while they were on it. And then nearly 40 years later, conclusive evidence showed that the wreck was in two pieces.

Port Albert Lake Huron