‘We can’t drink oil’: how a 70-year-old pipeline imperils the Great Lakes

‘I am terrified every day about an oil spill and what that would mean for our ability to fish, to gather, to eat together,’ said Whitney Gravelle. Photograph: Sylvia Jarrus/The Guardian

It’s little known to the throngs of tourists who gawp at the wonder of the Great Lakes but at the meeting point of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, a combined system that forms the largest lake in the world, there is a 70-year-old pipeline, battered and dented by dropped boat anchors.

The pipeline pushes a million gallons of oil each hour through the heart of this vast ecosystem.