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Refinery says oil pipeline needed under Mackinac Straits

DETROIT, MI (AP)--   The company that operates Michigan's only oil refinery says pipelines are needed to bring crude oil to the facility and transport its finished products, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. 

Representatives of the Marathon Oil refinery in Detroit met this week with a task force evaluating the safety of the Enbridge pipeline that runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac. They said switching to rail or truck transport would be too expensive.

Students and a professor from Central Michigan University called for an independent study of the potential economic and environmental consequences of a spill in the straits area, which links Lakes Huron and Michigan.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette and Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant established the task force to study the pipeline and Michigan's readiness to deal with spills.