TRAVERSE CITY, MI (AP)-- Enbridge says it's moving ahead with collecting rock and soil samples in the Straits of Mackinac while preparing for a court battle with Michigan's governor over a planned oil pipeline tunnel there.
The Canadian company received a permit in January to do preliminary sampling in the channel linking Lakes Huron and Michigan. That was before Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered state agencies to stop implementing an agreement between Enbridge and former Governor Rick Snyder to build the tunnel.
Enbridge has asked the Michigan Court of Claims to rule on the legality of that deal.
The company said Monday the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has given the go-ahead for the geotechnical sampling. It starts this week.
The tunnel would replace dual pipelines carrying oil along the straits bottomlands.
