LANSING – Enbridge waited two months to report to the state the loss of some equipment on the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac while conducting geotechnical drilling ahead of the potential Line 5 tunnel project and likely will have to leave the debris until spring 2020.

According to media reports this week, Enbridge was taking soil samples in the straits on September 12 when a bore hole collapsed, resulting in a 40-foot long piece of 3-inch drilling road to become lodged in the borehole beneath the lake bottom.

During efforts to retrieve the piece lodged in the hole, a 45-foot long piece of 3-inch drilling rod snapped and settled on the bottomlands in the straits, about 245 feet below the water’s surface.

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