Maintaining clean water and air is of the utmost importance, to be sure. And, as stewards of our environment for future generations, it’s important that we make well-considered decisions about energy consumption and the waste that can be produced.

But for rural areas like the Upper Peninsula, there are real consequences to being cut off from fossile fuels, which we rely on for a variety of purposes, most importantly heating our homes.

Upper Peninsula residents and businesses use 34.2 million gallons of propane per year, according to a 2021 article by the the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The MCPP assessment of cost of implementing Michigan’s U.P. Energy Task Force Committee recommendations reveals that nearly 80% of that propane is used for residential heating.

Enbridge’s Line 5 — which traverses the lakebed along the Straits of Mackinac — brings in the lions share of the raw material needed to make the propane to the Rapid River fractionator which makes 88% of the propane used by customers throughout the U.P.

Siting for the Line 5 tunnel project was recently approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission, which essentially means, the commission said it’s OK to move the tunnel from it’s place along the lakebed to an underground corridor.

The MPSC added some safety conditions, but ultimately agreed that the public need for the pipeline and the crude oil and propane it carries despited the opposition of environmental activists, some Indian tribal groups and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Line 5, as it stands now, risks harming the environment — which in turn could harm people for generations to come. But without it, rural citizens of the U.P. don’t have a reliable option to heat their homes and businesses.

To us, as long as it done in a safe, considered and environmentally friendly way, we agree with the MPSC, a tunnel to house Line 5 seems to be a logical solution.

During a meeting of the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority, dozens of people who opposed the tunnel got a chance to share that opposition. Many of them simply don’t understand what goes on here above the bridge.

Former 109th District Rep. Sara Cambensy described Line 5 as key to both the energy and economy of the U.P.

More importantly for us, the it’s how the people of the Upper Peninsula have heated their homes for decades. State officials and energy companies must find a cost-effective solution for those people, and those who live in other rural areas that depend on fossile fuels.