ANN ARBOR, MI (MPRN)-- The partial government shutdown means a program that monitors conditions in the Great Lakes is also shut down.
Eric Anderson is with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab.
He says the lab normally monitors currents in the Straits of Mackinac - along with ice cover.
The program would help the Coast Guard decide where to place oil booms, for example, in the event of an oil spill from Line 5.
“Without the best current and ice forecast information available, we're extremely limited in understanding what might happen over the next few hours or days, in this case that would be where that oil patch is going to go to,” he says.
A spokesman for Enbridge says its contractors provide some of the same data.
But Anderson says the data is limited and wouldn't be immediately available in the event of a spill.