While most of the $500 million safety project still requires state approvals, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. has started work on tunnels for water crossings of its contested 540,000 b/d Line 5.

Deliveries have begun through a $20 million tunnel that replaced a 66-year-old riverbed trench. The tunnel consists of new pipe in a tube 2,814 feet long and 30 feet beneath the St. Clair River between Port Huron in Michigan and Sarnia in Ontario.

Line 5 also has faced legal hurdles in Wisconsin. Enbridge has secured landowner agreements to a right-of-way that steers a 40-mile detour around the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The tribe had filed a lawsuit that demanded Line 5 be removed and damages of $45 million. The new right-of-way deals avoided a court fight...